bkenosha magazine

“There is a very sharing spirit with the business owners down here. Maybe some of them are first time business owners. They’re taking a chance or they’re doing something they love. All these businesses seem imbued with a spirit of something they enjoy. I think that is really helping fire up people for promoting the area, not just their own individual businesses but each other.”

If Heather Poyner had one of those “I’d rather be . . .” frames that goes around a car license plate, it would say “I’d rather be drumming.” As it is, her license plate reads “We Drum.” Close enough. For Heather, the full truth is “I’d rather be drumming and facilitating.” She does both and is passionate about both. The latest example of her passion is a new “retail and community play space” called The Drum Hut (5607 Seventh Ave.) that opened on January 31st.

The Drum Hut is really two spaces; a retail area and a public, community space. In the retail part of the “Hut,” Heather sells “any indigenous or ethnic percussion that I find interesting and that is unusual in Kenosha,” she said in a recent interview. This includes ethnic percussion such as African drums, bells, rattles, and shakers. “I want this to be a museum where you can play the toys.” In the more public part of the store, chairs are always set up as if ready for a “community shared time.” The idea for the community area, aside from providing a space for drum lessons is to offer a “play space to like-minded musicians.” Heather hopes that it might become “a gathering place for musically minded people.” As part of this, she will hold free drum circles during Second Saturdays.

Heather’s plan is to offer hand drum lessons and facilitated drum circles. The hand drum lessons will be tailored to the age and experience of those taking lessons. She plans on daytime/afternoon classes for kids and teens, reserving evenings for adults.
She also wants to do workshops. “I would really like to have someone come in and do a Native American flute workshop.” She is open to any workshop ideas. “We’ll try and make it happen.”

Heather’s main focus is what sh e calls “rhythm facilitation.” Her mission is to make music easy and fun. “I strive to provide groups of all ages and abilities with the adventure of making upbeat and exciting music. Ethnic percussion is accessible because it is all about rhythm. Each of us is a rhythm machine from our pulse to our heartbeat, so when we sit in a drum circle we’ve already brought our music with us. Drum circles are less about what we know than what we share. I just supply a few instruments and the opportunity to explore and play. If I am doing my job as a facilitator I am helping you connect to your song as you connect to those of others in the circle.”

What does Heather like about drumming and facilitating? She likes “the magic,” and “transformation” that occurs when she sits with people. “I am connecting to the music of the larger circle because we are influencing each other and creating together. What we are doing is an ephemeral art. It is like a sand mandala that blows away when it is done. I like being part of that in the circle. I also enjoy the rhythms and the fact that rhythm is in our bodies and we get to express that connection to being alive. Related to that is facilitating. I like being that person that helps facilitate other people’s enjoyment of what I also enjoy”

For Heather, facilitating is about “making sure everybody gets their voice heard” and “helping everyone in the circle tell their musical story.” A good facilitator knows how to deal with the one person whose story is louder than the others or is so off that they are throwing everyone off. How do you deal with that? Do you say ’sorry you’re wrong. Your stuff sucks. Go away.’ No you don’t. You have to manage that. You have to figure out how you can still honor that person’s gifts to the circle but help the other people still play nice together.

Why did she open her store now? It was “the logical manifestation of what I have already been doing. We had done a semi-public circle in our home for eight years. I’d been in the public with the drums for about that time and I began to feel that a home-based business was not the sort of business that this drumming needed. It needed a public face.”

Heather’s journey to finding a “public face” for her drumming has been an evolution. After studying journalism at U.W.- Madison Heather worked for the Kenosha News as a local and feature reporter. In 1999 she discovered drum circles, took hand drumming lessons, and learned music facilitation f rom Tom Gill of Wauwatosa. By mid-2000, she was holding regular drum circles in her home and began facilitating. Since then, she has facilitated at Lemonstreet Art Gallery, schools, adult daycare centers, the Dayton Hotel, and numerous birthday parties. In 2003, she left the Kenosha News “trading my Reporter’s Guild card for a vanload of ethnic drums and assorted percussion.” Over the years, she has assembled a core group drum enthusiasts who drum at public venues, some of whom also get together each month to play didjeridus and Native American flutes. She also formed a company she named Rhythm in the Round. In 2005, her literary urges got the best of her and she decided to share her drum circle and facilitation experiences in a book entitled, Some Kind of Magic: Livin’ the Rhythm of Community Drumming (AuthorHouse, 2005). Then, last Fall, two events conspired to make the Drum Hut a reality.

Last Fall, Heather went back for her third year of substitute teaching and got kicked around a little. “There were some bad days with middle school kids; disrespectful behavior. I remember being in the school saying I’d had enough.” So, in October, she took the day off and I said “I’m going to look downtown.” She realized she wanted to invest her energy in something that she was passionate about. “This is better for me and this is better for the people I am with; not ju st my family but the community.” “What am I good at?” she asked herself. “What do I love? Well, I have a passion for the drums. I’m an educator, a communicator, and a community person. I love drumming and I want to grow Kenosha.” It was then that she found the space that would become the Drum Hut.

Heather shares her building with Dakini Healing Arts, which offers therapeutic massage, energy work, and meditation. The question arose: would a drum and percussion space be compatible with a massage and meditation place next door? Heather and a friend, John von Eiff, tested the sound dynamics by banging on washing machines and dryers that were stored in her prospective space while Stacy, the owner of Dakini Healing Arts, and the real-estate agent listened. Stacy told Heather that the drumming was OK. “It was audible but not disturbing,” she said.

As a person new to retail, Heather is realizing the importance of marketing and that she needs to find ways “to make my store and my goodies attractive.” Although this is her first retail business it seems “very natural” and “an easy transition” because she knows her product: drumming. “I love my product. I have been working with this product, which is both a drum product and a drum circle experience, for nine years. I think knowing takes some of the fear out of it? There are plenty of things I don’t know; for instance, sales tax. Colleen from Down the Rabbit Hole was my ‘go to business mentor’ on a lot of things. She was actually “my tax chart angel.” The night before Heather’s grand opening, Colleen worked out and printed a tax chart for Heather.

Colleen illustrates what Heather sees as a very important aspect of the downtown business community. “There is a very sharing spirit with the business owners down here. Maybe some of them are first time business owners. They’re taking a chance or they’re doing something they love. All these businesses seem imbued with a spirit of something they enjoy. I think that is really helping fire up people for promoting the area, not just their own individual businesses but each other.” In Heather’s view, this “sharing spirit” means “people are going to put a lot of energy into growing their businesses and continue to be artisan oriented.”

Having lived in Kenosha for twenty years, Heather remembers when there were a number of antique stores downtown. “Those have all gone. Now we have coffee shops where artists are showing their work. It is a new feeling and I don’t think it is going away or is a fad. I think20it is the beginning of the future. There is the potential for it becoming a community of grassroots art. It is people believing in what they are doing.”

Heather’s days consist of minding the shop, offering programs, and “tilling the soil because spring will come soon.” When people walk by, usually on their way to the nearby Subway, the drums get their attention. Heather believes now is the time and location to make her dreams a reality. “If I can’t make it in this space with what I’ve got for energy and resources, then it is not going to happen. I’m not going to try it again or beat myself up about it. I think I am giving myself as many advantages as I can. I am right off the main street. I have nice beautiful windows. If it can’t happen here then maybe it is not going to happen and maybe that is OK.”

Currently, Heather is doing an after shool program at an elementary school in Milwaukee where she facilitates the crafting of ethnic instruments such as digeridoos, rain sticks, and egg shakers. All artisans, especially those who make indigenous-inspired instruments, are invited to contact Heather to find out how to show your wares at The Drum Hut. For more information check out her website at www.rhythmintheround.com.