John Boone Founder and Director
Whether it’s with a group of 5 year old school children, or the marketing team of a global corporation, John’s passion clearly shows with each performance. He loves to inspire and entertain his audiences. Starting with pots and pans at age 5, rhythm became the perfect tool for him to connect his audiences, both large and small. John is not only passionate about delivering entertaining drum performances, but is also driven to inspire people in making a positive change in our world, through themes such as “Actions Speak Louder Than Words” and “Together as one” “ We can make a change”.
Born in the Netherlands, John along with his parents and younger brother immigrated to New Zealand in 1982. His family settled in a small town on the East coast of the North Island called Katikati where he completed high school at Katikati College.
Music and drama were his favourite subjects and by the age of 15 he had joined most of the school bands and school theatre plays.
John’s passion for music and drumming only grew. It was on a trip to South Africa in 2001 where he fell in love with the power of African rhythms and the concept of group drumming.
In 2002 Rhythm Interactive was born in a garage in Queenstown NZ with just 30 drums. After one of his early performances a participant approached him after the performance and said “I loved your performance, but I don’t think you really know what you’re doing”. For years this comment stuck with him, and it wasn’t until he had hundreds of shows under his belt, that he came to understand what this man was pointing to: the extraordinary experience of collective flow that emerges when an audience is totally engaged in a shared activity and in the absolute moment of now.
John had stumbled upon the ability to create collective flow with his audiences, all the right ingredients were there, an activity where there’s full participation and by not speaking throughout the performances his audiences had to pay attention by looking and listening creating an energized focus within the group.
John has developed 7 languages of collective flow to help others who work in or with groups to tap into what he has learnt about inspiring collective flow, to dramatically increase engagement, creativity and performance.
Since 2002 John has performed over 2000 interactive drum shows both throughout New Zealand and internationally. His passion and drive to connect people through rhythm is forever growing.