Return to Press/Media

She Dares To Drum - An Autobiographical Music/Theatre Piece
Performed By Barbara Borden

Reviews from the Critics...

She Dares To Drum is an 80-minute 'percussion play' about the making of a woman drummer in America, and a tribute to the mother who nurtured and embarrassed her...When Barbara Borden finally speaks, her words are also instruments of percussion…Borden makes you feel that the world is her drum... She's a personable and engagingly open narrator as well ...Borden interweaves her life story with eloquent percussion passages."    
--- Robert Hurwitt, SF Examiner                                                                    

"A synthesis of theater and music, She Dares To Drum combines the language of the drum and the spoken word weaving the stories of her Russian Jewish ancestry, identical twin show-biz sisters, a trail of bands and eight years with the women's jazz ensemble, Alive!  The story, told in rhythm with text as concise as a lyric sheet, provides the context for her bravura musical performance, revealing how her life experience is the wellspring of her music.
---Dennis Harvey, SF Bay Guardian

"Whether she's satirizing her own adolescent attempts to drum her way through "My Fair Lady" or spinning out a gorgeously complex meditation on three hauntingly tuned drums at the end of the piece, Borden draws you into a supple rhythmic intelligence and intuition."    
--Steven Winn, SF Chronicle

"Drum is a peach.  It's arresting, confident, and stringently non-indulgent…She drums; nothing else matters...umor and a lot of other qualities -- confusion, anxiety, joy, drama -- surge out of her playing...She Dares To Drum is a true original hybrid, conveying both subtle emotional atmospherics and a full range of musical genres and instruments that range from a traditional drum kit to Tibetan singing bowls.  Borden 'speaks' through mixed aural media that hold our full attention."          
--- Dennis Harvey, SF Bay Guardian

"Barbara Borden is a fabulous drummer.  She plays a dizzying variety of percussion instruments, along with her own body (thighs and chest) to keep time as she tells
the story of her life."                                                     
--- Mari Coates, SF Weekly