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Betty Ladzepko’s West African Dance Troupe at Berkeley Arts Magnet Elementary sing and dance to the beat of a different drum. 

Instead of dancing to recorded music at their Spring Concert finale at the school last year, they went out into the community, raised $1,000 and brought in pros from the East Bay Center for Performing Arts in Richmond to provide live beats to dance to. 

This afternoon, as part of the National Education Foundation Conference in Sacramento, they’ll dance for Richard Riley, the U.S. Secretary of Education and Delaine Eastin, the California Superintendent of Public Schools – not to mention 1,500 others. 

But don’t expect the 14 dancers and seven drummers to have any pre-show jitters. These same 21 kids have done this before – at the California Distinguished Schools Awards in Anaheim.  

“This class is really remarkable,” said Ladzepko, a dancer herself with the Oakland-based African Music and Dance Ensemble and Co-director of the youth West African Dance Ensemble at the center in Richmond.  

“A lot of these dances are really complicated for kids of this age,” she said. 

The troop will present Agebeko, an Anglo-Ewe War Dance Suite that originated in Ghana, West Africa. 

Joining in the act are seven of instructor Al Guzman’s Percussion Band, who will perform Batucada – a Brazilian drum style. 

Tuesday afternoon, the auditorium at the school was rumbling with the sound of Batucada as the dancers and drummers went over the routine one last time before the big show. 

The dancers waved the traditional horse tails – hand-held tassels resembling the equine behind that replaced swords when the dance was changed by the people of Ghana from a war celebration to one of peace – and chanted in the traditional language as they danced the elaborate Agebeko. 

The drummers, spurred by Guzman’s whistle, moved in after the dancers filed off and began banging out the distinctive Latin sound. 

The dancers and drummers will each give their respective performances before combining to perform a unique cultural mix of Brazilian beats and West African dance. 

In total, the school’s performance will last nearly half an hour.  

Berkeley Arts Magnet Principal Lorna Skantze-Neill said that while the school was being lauded as one of only six in the state to win both State Arts Excellence awards and the California Distinguished School award last year in Anaheim, a representative from the State Board of Education asked the dancers and drummers to come to Sacramento and perform at the National Conference. 

“These kids have worked hard,” she said. “They’ve come back during the summer and practiced after school to get ready for this.” 

Ladzepko explained that fourth, fifth and sixth-graders at the school get the chance to choose a discipline from a list of performing arts the school offers to study for a year. So this group is actually made up of fifth, sixth and some seventh graders. 

“Here we treat the arts as seriously as reading, writing, science and mathematics,” said Skantze-Neill.  

“We require the same discipline in the arts as we do in the academic areas.” 

Berkeley Arts Magnet has been honored as a California Distinguished School four times, she said. 

Funded by Berkeley Schools Excellence Project paid for by schools taxes, the arts program at Berkeley Arts enables “creativity for so many kids,” Skantze-Neill said. 

“This artistic creativity also translates back to academics and helps the students succeed,” she said. 

The school is the only California school invited to attend the National Conference, the principal said. 

“It’s a real honor for us to go,” said parent and volunteer Carolyn Green.