Lipushau

         Lipushau is a women’s frame drum performance group that uses rhythm, movement, song, and spoken word to evoke archetypes that link the mythic past and the mythic present.  It draws on a tradition of women’s  drumming that reaches back almost 5000 years, when the sacred and the secular were one and,  it is suggested,  women were believed to be the gateway to the divine.

     The group was first brought together by Professor Wendy Griffin as a part of  her Lunacies of Light  project at CSULB, a performance piece in 6 acts,  in the Spring of 1996.  The reception was so enthusiastic that the women decided to continue working and performing together, and took the name of Lipushau, High Priestess in the Temple of the Moon in ancient Ur,  and the oldest named drummer in all of history. This style of drumming began in the Middle East and spread quickly across Northern Egypt, the Greek and the Roman Empires until it was banned by the Church in a series of edicts from 375-576 c.e., whenit was forbidden to teach women music.

Lipushau Performances

December 8, 2000
Winter Solstice Faire
Unitarian Universalist Church
Long Beach, CA

September 16, 2000
Los Angeles Pagan Pride
Unitarian Universalist Church
Long Beach, California

June 17, 2000
Summer Solstice Fair
Unitarian Universalist Church
Long Beach, California

March 18, 2000
Women's Herstory in Song and Music 11
Unitarian Universalist Church
Long Beach, California

November 21, 1999
Book Launching at Atlantic Studio
Long Beach, California

September 11, 1999
Long Beach's Day of the Drums
Long Beach, California

July  24, 1999
Grandmother Oaks Festival
Tujunga Hills, California

May 29, 1999
International Drums
5th Anniversary Banquet, NAKASEC
Radisson Wilshire Plaza Hotel
Los Angeles, California

March 20, 1999
Women's Herstory in Music & Voice
1st Congregational Church
Long Beach, California

March 12, 1999
Ireland is a Woman
CSULB
Long Beach, California

March 5, 1999
Charter Cable TV
Long Beach, California

February 9, 1999
Charter Cable TV
Long Beach, California

January 16, 1998
Charter Cable TV
Long Beach, California

October 3, 1998
Long Beach, California

May 9, 1998
The Beverley Hills Women's Club
Los Angeles, CA

March 21, 1998
 Musefest 98
 Newport Beach, CA

November 22, 1997
 invited by Layne Redmond
 University of California at Irvine

November 1, 1997
 Ravens’ Song at Samhain
 The ARK Gallery, Long Beach, CA.

October 22, 1997
 invited by Layne Redmond
 Borders Bookstore
 Long Beach, CA

March 23, 1997
 performance and interview  (2 shows)
 Healing Visions
 Long Beach Cable Television,

March 19, 1997
 demonstration and performance
 part of the Women’s History Month program
 CSULB, Long Beach, CA.

January 18, 1997
 Invocation to  Isis
 The ARK Gallery, Long Beach, CA.

December 7, 1996
 Winter Solstice Fair,
 Long Beach’s WomanSpirit
 Unitarian Universalist Church, Long Beach, CA.

November 21,  1996
 lecture, demonstration, performance
 CSULB, Long Beach, CA.

November 2, 1996
 An Evening with Lipushiau
 Living Planet, Santa Monica, CA

October 12, 1996
 Affirmative Action Benefit
 Living Planet, Santa Monica, CA.

September 7, 1996
 Wedding
 Living Planet, Santa Monica, CA

October 1996
 Sigma Alpha Iota Sorority
 (professional music sorority)
 Anaheim, CA

October 1996
 fund-raiser for WomanShelter
 Tall Ship California, Long Beach, CA.

September 28, 1996
 Luminaries - II
 UN One Year Later Conference
 Los Angles, CA.  June ,  1996

May  5, 1996
 fund-raiser  for Living Planet
 Santa Monica, CA

March 29, 1996
 Drumming the Light
 part of the 1996 Women’s Conference,
 CSULB, Long Beach, CA.
 

 If you are interested in contacting Lipushau for a performance, please contact wgriffin@csulb.edu
 
 

Last Updated: May 30,  1999
by  Wendy Griffin