The persistent beat of the doun doun and djembe were the only predictable parts of the traditional music and vibrant performance of the Song and Dance Ensemble of West Africa at Cornell, Oct. 3.

The ensemble, playing to a sizable audience in Bailey Hall, used traditional instruments to share songs about life, work and happiness derived from Mali's folkloric music.

But the different songs with distinct themes belied the music's overall spontaneous feel. As the players worked their way into Soubala Molea , an instrumental love song about nature under a moonlit night, the bass ngoni player stood up and danced to the edge of the stage, plucking a lush solo on his small, canoe-shaped instrument.

Likewise, toward the end of the songs, singers dressed in flowing red garments left their microphones at the back of the stage and came around in front of the instrumental ensemble, launching into full-bodied and often frenzied choreography.

As if to invite the audience members to participate, the house lights came up during every dance portion. Throughout the concert, the musicians and dancers looked and gestured fixedly at the people in the seats, seeming to encourage them to share in the music as a communal experience.

Many of the songs featured singing in conjunction with the djembe drum, ngoni and balafon , a xylophone-like instrument. Two lead singers wrapped in flowing purple robes alternated turns at the front microphone, telling stories and sending messages in rough, penetrating voices.

Although most of the audience could not understand the African language, the singers' gestures and expressions communicated the main emotions behind the text, and the melodies carried the rest.

The music of the ensemble draws on idioms from African music, like the Congolese soukous , which has come to signify African rumba and its developments. Soukous and other traditions meld together to form a type of music that creates explosions of sound. This music is ideal for sharing with audiences around the world, because, as one member of the ensemble put it, it is "music that makes people move."

The performance was the second event in Cornell's 2008-09 Concert Series at Bailey Hall.

Jill McCoy '09 is a writer intern at the Cornell Chronicle.