Despite its more than 100 world musicians teaching students, and more than 250 world instruments kept in the department, this nationally recognized program is one you’ve probably never heard of.

Since the founding of the Visiting Artists Program in 1962, musicians from around the world have come to the UW each year to teach their native music culture to students.

This year, visiting artist Mudzunga Davhula from the Limpopo province of South Africa has been teaching students the traditional music of the Venda people, a group of African people who migrated south from the Congo.

Stemming from the Ethnomusicology department, the program has attracted artists from as far as Madagascar, Laos and Australia and has resulted in a new way to study music. This study, however, is not as much focused on books and lectures as it is on singing and dancing.

In one class session, students immersed themselves in the conventional dance and song of the Venda people.

Each person in the class has a specific, simple, one-tone reed to produce a sound unlike the rest. As one person starts, another person blows the reed out of sequence and another plays their reed before the previous player ends. Then the hand drums come in.

“It’s a completely different mindset,” said music major Eric Cranfield. “It’s not all four-four. It’s a completely different way of playing music and a really different way of thinking [about] music.”

As Davhula and her students play, they move in unison throughout the room. One song might require moving around in a circle while another calls for moving in and out of a circle and hopping from leg to leg. At other times, Davhula calls out for individual students to dance by drumbeat while the rest kneel and sing.

Each complex step and drumbeat is accompanied by singing that reflects the specific meaning of each song.

In one number, students sang an original song written for the UW — called “Beautiful university, I will die for you…” — in the Venda language Davhula taught students this quarter.

Davhula, in addition to instructing how to correctly perform each dance and song, is teaching students how music plays a part in the history of her culture.

“Before 1872, Venda was not even written down, the way of teaching our kids was through music; [it] was used as a thing of teaching behavior,” Davhula said. “Whatever was to be taught in Venda, it was communicated through music.”

This style of learning is one students in the class have not experienced before.

“It’s not just the music that we’re learning,” said Julie Bannerman, a music education graduate student. “We’re also learning a different way of learning music, which is really important.”

Others, such as Khaydja Reinhardt, who is not a music major, had different thoughts.

“I have never done music before and it’s really difficult,” Reinhardt said. “But it’s a whole new way of learning and it’s definitely my favorite class this quarter. It’s a chance to not be in the books and the library all the time.”

Regardless of major, many students found this to be an eye-opening experience.

“It makes you think more openly about music and the way it’s performed,” Cranfield said.

The students, having learned about Venda music and the different ways it can be played, are not the only ones receiving a cultural education. Davhula too has discovered a new culture. She remembers when she saw her students trying to dance the dances of the Venda people. She, along with her students, would laugh as a common ground was reached.

“When they were supposed to dance my own dance, I could see that even though their bodies are not ready for it, we would laugh together because we were coming from different cultures, we have to come to the middle where we will be sharing,” Davhula said. “I was also learning their culture, although I thought I brought a lot of things from my culture.”

Although she was hesitant at first, Davhula was surprised by the welcoming and loving students and faculty.

“And even when I come across the students with whom I’m with everyday, they are so loving people,” Davhula said. “I could read their love from their faces. [For] artists, if you are welcomed in such a manner when your heart is at ease, then you can perform, you can teach freely.”

As an extraordinary way to experience a different culture, the program unites the UW with the international music community.

“It opens up the world, really, in a different way than any other class does,” said Andrea Emberly, a graduate student in the Ethnomusicology department. “I think that it’s an important aspect in that it doesn’t just build community within the school of music, it’s the whole university and outside into the community of Seattle, and even farther than that when Mrs. Davhula returns home to South Africa, she’ll speak of the University of Washington with such high regard, and so it creates an international community.”

Despite the increasing interest, the Visiting Artists Program may be cut from the department due to budget constraints. For many students, this program is one of the best in the nation and the reason why they chose to study here.

“One of the reasons why I chose to come to the University of Washington is because of its emphasis on world music,” said Megan Perdue, a music graduate student. “This is a really good example of a unique opportunity that we get here that we’re not going to get anywhere else.”

The program has been around for 47 years. Throughout this time, many have gained a new world perspective on music and culture.

“[It is not] just another class to talk about the importance of incorporating world music,” said Brittany Newell, a music student. “These are the kind of classes where the meaning exists for studying world music.”

Reach reporter Brian Farn at features@dailyuw.com.