Performing Diaspora Archives - Page 3 of 10

31 Aug, 2009

Devendra Sharma for Performing Diaspora: “Mission Suhani”- Reflections from India!

2009-08-31T23:34:58-07:00By Devendra|Categories: CounterPULSE, Devendra Sharma, Performing Diaspora|Tags: Devendra Sharma, dowry, forced marriages, immigration, Indian folk music, Indian folk opera, Indian women's rights, Nautanki, Performance for Communication, Performing Diaspora, politics of immigration, Pundit Ram Dayal Sharma|

Hi friends! I spent last three months living in India, co-writing the new Nautanki performance script for the “Performing Diaspora” with my father-- the renowned Nautanki artist, Pundit Ram Dayal Sharma, I loved my time in India. It was so much fun, and a learning experience, working with my father on this script that focuses on the issue of Indian men living in the U.S., who go back to India to get married to young Indian women and receive huge

7 Sep, 2009

Thank you…

2009-09-07T20:58:49-07:00By CONTRA-TIEMPO|Categories: Ana Maria Alvarez, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: Ana Maria Alvarez, CONTRA-TIEMPO, Performing Diaspora|

Danica and Dulce -thank you both so much for your sharing! Having been in Cuba for the first works in progress showing - and looking towards the 20th as the first time I will be meeting many of the other artists in this amazing convergence of cultures, approaches, artistic voices - I am feeling nervous, overjoyed, fearful, delighted and absolutely frantic all at once... As the date grows nearer and as the rehearsal process is underway - the 'everyday' seems

14 Sep, 2009

Place, Setting and The Beginning

2009-09-14T01:31:09-07:00By Opal|Categories: CounterPULSE, Opal Palmer Adisa, Performing Diaspora|Tags: Opal Palmer Adisa, Performing Diaspora|

Myal, like many African based religion is tied intricately to place, location -- the setting and its surrounding fauna/flora play an important role. Myal was initially believed to simple mean "spirit." The first known recorded observation of a Myal ceremony was in 1774 by Edward Long, who documented the performance of a Myal dance intended to persuade slaves that they would be invulnerable to the bullets of the white man. It was said they were told by the Myal leader

15 Sep, 2009

Untangling Webs

2009-09-15T02:30:35-07:00By Adia|Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: adia whitaker, CounterPULSE, perform|

ind (circle) - the ghana blogs 2008 - (i feel you Colette!) Where clear crabs slide sideways across broken seashells and glass, there is a magnificent tossing and turning. At night they sing saltwater mountains of rage and revolt, a stampede of white stallions trample screaming angels and choke a caterwauling into the sea. Like fire shooting out of high voltage outlets into frazzled plugs, every grain of sand, salt and sea was charged and exploding. My feet sank as I sang

16 Sep, 2009

Returning to the “Door of No Return”.

2009-09-16T13:25:12-07:00By Colette|Categories: Colette Eloi, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: Colette Eloi, Haiti, Performing Diaspora|

I wonder if my ancestors imaged that their children would ever come back home to Africa. After experiencing being captured beat, chained together and walked miles and miles from their homes, ancestral lands, family, language, culture, religion, food, flora and fauna to sit and wait in a dungeon. To be taken to a place on boats named “Jesus” and such. The slave dungeon in Elmina, Ghana is called a castle ironically enough and a church sits on top of it.

16 Sep, 2009

Rembetiko by Kunst-Stoff

2009-09-16T14:06:08-07:00By Yannis|Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Yannis Adoniou|Tags: KUNST-STOFF, Performing Diaspora, Rembetiko, yannis adoniou|

Rembetiko is a type of music and lifestyle that was developed by the Greek refugees that lived for countless generations in Turkey and then were forced to move back to the motherland of Greece because of the threat of genocide. Yannis Adoniou Catherine Clambaneva and Leonidas Kassapides are exploring the style and importance of Rembetika by dissecting their own disciplines of dance, song and shadow theater and creating a new language so that the audience can feel in their heart

17 Sep, 2009

One of the most dreamy artistic experiences…

2009-09-17T12:47:48-07:00By Yannis|Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Yannis Adoniou|Tags: KUNST-STOFF, Performing Diaspora, yannis adoniou|

One of the most dreamy artistic experiences was when Yanni's choreography and Katerina's singing allowed with the help of athletic dancers a simple light source like a flashlight to tell a story while feeling the same breeze that one feels when the shadow of a dozen leaves try to keep still on our faces.

22 Sep, 2009

Rembetiko from Asia Minor to Greece

2009-09-22T12:16:53-07:00By Yannis|Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Yannis Adoniou|Tags: Greece, Performing Diaspora, Rembetiko, yannis adoniou|

After Kemal Attaturk beat Eleftherios Venizelos Greek troups in Turkey there was an exchange of population of the two countries. All the Christians had to move to Greece all Muslims had to move in Turkey. The refugees that went back to Greece had to start all over because although they were prosperous they had to escape massacre with nothing except wat they would carry. Most of them carried liras (gold coins) a hand full of soil from their garden to

26 Sep, 2009

Work-in-progress showing

2009-09-26T13:32:41-07:00By Sri Susilowati|Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Sri Susilowati|Tags: Performing Diaspora|

The process of creating parts of the piece and showing them has been stimulating. At the showing in San Francisco, there were comments on things that surprised me. At one point I finish drinking a glass of wine and someone remarked on the how my exhalation into the glass fogged it up and thought that was quite beautiful. Another thing I do in the piece is change costume on stage while I talk. Many seemed to like this, but one

28 Sep, 2009

Rembetiko

2009-09-28T02:13:07-07:00By Leonidas Kassapides|Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Yannis Adoniou|Tags: Greek, KUNST-STOFF, Leonidas Kassapides, Performing Diaspora, Rembetiko|

Rembetiko is not just a stylle of music, it is also a way of life an attitude that constanly questions authority in crative ways. The solo dance of the rembetes although based on traditional moves and technique is always breaking rulles and evolving as a living art. The Rembetika lyrics touch subject matter that is dangerous and threatening to normal law obeying citizens. The shadow theater of refugees of the lost lands of Asia Minor tell stories of living in

29 Sep, 2009

You have tried

2009-09-29T10:43:08-07:00By Adia|Categories: Adia Tamar Whitaker, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: adia whitaker, ampey, Performing Diaspora|

now and then adia wrote: not heads, just faces april 13, 2009 In sidewalk cracks and florescent puddles, busted spindles stack grief and silence. Violent at the core a snake rises unraveling in a double helix born of war. A blank stare slips and falls into the wrong hands. Crimson bends black across corners in Brooklyn. The blood has been washed away. A new ancestor waits to pass. One on Dean street, the other on Bergen. I went home. The new skyscrapers in Frisco are the

5 Oct, 2009

Kathak Made a Man Out of Me…..And a Bird!

2009-10-05T00:46:53-07:00By Charlotte|Categories: Charlotte Moraga, CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora|Tags: classical indian dance, Kathak, Performing Diaspora, The Conference of the Birds|

Kathak made a man out of me....And a Bird! by Charlotte Moraga Gender-bending, gender-blending--This is ardhinariswara. It’s nothing new for a Kathak dancer. We have to explore the depths of extreme masculinity and extreme femininity as we portray different characters and characterization in stories. This kind of role playing requires an artist to get in touch with conflicting feelings and emotions within. What does it mean to be a man? a woman? As a woman, a mother, a grandmother, I

Devendra Sharma for Performing Diaspora: “Mission Suhani”- Reflections from India!

Thank you…

Place, Setting and The Beginning

Untangling Webs

Returning to the “Door of No Return”.

Rembetiko by Kunst-Stoff

One of the most dreamy artistic experiences…

Rembetiko from Asia Minor to Greece

Work-in-progress showing

Rembetiko

You have tried

Kathak Made a Man Out of Me…..And a Bird!

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