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Posts Tagged ‘culture’

Fighting Back with Art

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 11, 2026| 7 Comments »

Photo: Leah Pattem.
Nani, a resident of Tribulete 7, protests against the investment fund that purchased her home in Madrid in 2024. 

What do you do when the people with the power are against you?

Join with other victims, and don’t give up.

Leah Pattem, who made a movie about a tenant rebellion in Spain, offers this opinion at the Guardian.

“Spain’s housing crisis finally came for the tenants of Madrid’s Calle Tribulete 7 when their block was sold to an investment fund. Feeling pressured to leave by rent increases and aggressive construction works that flooded some apartments, they did everything they were supposed to do: organize meetings, contact the tenants’ union and find a lawyer. They also protested, spoke to journalists and created an Instagram account to spread the word. But they also did something I’d never seen before.

“They opened up their homes to the public and invited musicians to play inside, in the very flats and shops that were suddenly at risk. A month later they flipped this concept on its head and took their furniture out on to the street. There the tenants cooked, knitted, played chess in their dressing gowns, worked from home and bobbed in their armchairs to a local band playing a brass version of Freed from Desire. It was a spectacular theatrical performance of everyday existence, but also a fight for their lives.

“In the years after the 2008 global financial crisis, and the Spanish housing disaster that followed, the country’s campaigners have slowly changed tack. Back then, banks and their reckless mortgage loans were the main problem, and defining the frontline was the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), the organization that launched Ada Colau to fame and the Barcelona mayoralty, and helped stop countless evictions. Though the PAH is still relevant today, the Spanish housing crisis of the 2020s involves the buying up of entire residential buildings – some of which have a hundred tenants inside – by domestic and foreign investment funds such as Blackstone.

“The media framing of Spain’s housing crisis has evolved, too. For decades, photographers such as Olmo Calvo and Alberto Astudillo have documented the most brutal cases: armed police battering down doors, personal belongings piled on to pavements, grieving parents doing their best to shield their traumatized children. But a new style of coverage is emerging – one that celebrates the community under threat, in the hope that the act of celebration can inspire citizens to mobilize to protect the right to a decent home.

“This is exactly what myself and fellow documentary film-maker Elisa González have been involved in for two years in our own neighborhood of Lavapiés in central Madrid. From that first day of living-room concerts, we realized we weren’t simply documenting Spain’s housing crisis, but witnessing the emergence of a new social movement. …

“Nani, who lives on the second floor of Tribulete 7, runs El Elemento, a DJ collective for people with disabilities. One of her star performers, DJ Jessy, played at the residents’ first musical protest, inside the now-closed shoe shop in the building. DJ Jessy’s popularity also brought her to the biggest stage of the Madrid neighborhood fiestas, organized by Madrid city council. But Nani is fearful for the group’s future if they are forced out of the neighborhood. The council is happy to champion local culture, but takes little interest in addressing the housing crisis that will ultimately destroy that very cultural fabric. …

“For the residents of Tribulete 7, the battle rages on. After years of campaigning against their new landlord, the residents and their prolific lawyer, Alejandra Jacinto Uranga, filed what could become Spain’s first successful lawsuit against an investment fund for alleged real estate harassment – the building’s owners reject this and are fighting the case. Beyond the groundbreaking legal fight, the protests and the viral concerts, the tenants of Tribulete 7 are tapping into something even more important: community care.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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But What If AI Saves Dying Languages?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Richard Ellis/Alamy.
Copies of the Gullah-language Bible, De Nyew Testament. I once had a Bible collection that included this one. Some experts say artificial intelligence will help save endangered languages like Gullah Geechee.

For many reasons, including the fact that artificial intelligence “godfather” Geoffrey Hinton has said AI could wipe out humanity in three decades, I am not a fan. I know it can be helpful in medicine and other things I care about, but three decades is scary.

But what if AI saves dying languages?

Jonathan Abrams wrote recently at the New York Times about people using AI as a tool to do just that.

“While relaxing a couple of years ago, Prof. Joshua Caffery found himself in the mood to unwind with some old-time Cajun music. He asked Amazon’s Alexa to play selections from Dewey Balfa, a celebrated fiddler and singer credited with popularizing the genre.

“Instead, Alexa frustratingly steered him to the catalog of the modern pop artist, Dua Lipa, Caffery said.

“ ‘I love Dua Lipa,’ said Caffery, the director of the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ‘Don’t get me wrong. But it seems problematic if you’re interested in a different kind of culture and you want to surround yourself with the music of your region.’ …

“Louisiana French, the oral dialect of which Balfa was a cultural guardian, is part of the Bayou’s societal DNA, a link to its history, music and identity. Today, Caffery described the language as struggling and endangered. …

“In response, Caffery assembled a small team at the center to train its own language learning model in automatic speech recognition for Louisiana French, drawing from a trove of historical artifacts and interviews.

“Over the months, as the learning language model is trained on bits of the language — such as an old-age French nursery rhyme — it brings centuries-old dialect closer into the digital age.

“ ‘It’s scary how fast all this happened,’ Caffery said. ‘I don’t even think I knew a large-language model existed two years ago.’ …

“The efforts are part of inroads to preserve dialects at risk of being lost, and bridge a disconnect between large-language model machines, while maintaining a community’s ability to control and own its digital destiny.

“In the United States, questions exist over how to preserve languages like Louisiana French, the Gullah Geechee language (the English-based Creole language of some coastal regions in the Atlantic southeast) and Appalachian English in the modern, digital age.

“Globally, researchers at the University of Edinburgh are using artificial intelligence to strengthen and revive Scottish Gaelic and Manx. Google recently announced the availability of voice recordings of nearly 30 sub-Saharan African languages to help build tools like voice assistants and translation apps. …

“The importance of accurate speech recognition becomes greater as important tasks like job hiring and medical transcriptions become more automated and digitized, [Christine Mallinson, a professor of language, literacy, and culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County] said. …

” ‘There’s accents, patterns of grammar, word choice. Those differences are connected to our families, our neighborhoods, our age and gender and racial and ethnic and cultural backgrounds and where we grew up.’ …

“For centuries, Louisiana French was the predominant language spoken in South Louisiana. In 1921, a new state constitution declared English the primary language. Many parents stopped teaching their children the language out of fear of discrimination, as students who spoke Louisiana French in class were often punished with knuckle-rappings.

“A reversal came in 1968 when the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana was created to advance French, largely through education and community initiatives. In 2023, the Advocate of Baton Rouge estimated about 120,000 Louisianans still spoke French.

“Caffery grew up in Franklin, La., an antebellum town on Bayou Teche. As a child, he ate Cajun and Creole food. His grandparents sometimes sang Old French songs and passed along phrases in the language.

“ ‘Whether you spoke it or speak it, the language is floating in the air,’ he said. ‘There’s this feeling of there is this beautiful thing that we want to hang on to.’ …

“The Center of Louisiana Studies houses a vast trove of Cajun and Creole folklore recordings that include over 12,000 hours of oral histories, field recordings and music performances recorded on everything from wax cylinders to reel-to-reel tape. …

“The language is almost entirely preserved in vocal recordings. ‘A lot of it is sung in the language, and it’s something that’s vanishing,’ Caffery said. ‘Just in the same way you’d want food that’s local to your region, it’s important to have culture that is local to the region that makes you feel rooted and certain.’ ”

More at the Times, here,

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Teaching Gullah Geechee Culture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 8, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Patrick Martin.
More than 50 high school seniors from Charleston county school of the arts visited the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. 

Those of us who enjoy eating in restaurants with authentic cuisine from different countries know how food has taught us a lot about those countries. That’s the premise behind a high school class in South Carolina that hopes to educate seniors about some fascinating South Carolina islanders.

Melissa Hellmann writes at the Guardian, “When students from Charleston county school of the arts in South Carolina entered a research institute on the African diaspora, staff greeted them with ‘welcome home.’

“The field trip at the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture was the culmination of a six-week English course about memoir. Students learned about the culture of Gullah Geechee people — the descendants of formerly enslaved West Africans who retained their customs — through the lens of food such as okra, red rice and beans.

“The more than 50 high school seniors leafed through pamphlets on local food festivals, advertisements from the 1960s and Gullah Geechee cookbooks spanning more than 30 years. A few Gullah students in the class found information about their families in the center’s archives.

“During the visit, a Gullah Geechee chef, Reggie Miller, prepared a meal of Carolina gold rice, broccoli grown on nearby John’s Island and locally sourced chicken for the students. The visit culminated with the students creating a ‘zine about Gullah Geechee foodways that was built on archives from the center, and which showed how family recipes and traditions shape history.

“ ‘These cultural foodway legacies have been part of the Charleston and the southern United States culture and even beyond that for hundreds of years and students may have just not learned about it in school,’ said Patrick Martin, an English teacher at the school. Martin received a $1,000 memoir grant through the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Penguin Random House and the Anne Frank Fonds to teach the course. …

“High school and college students throughout South Carolina this past school year have learned about Gullah Geechee history and culture in the context of food. These classes mark a shift in the past decade in which educators are increasingly teaching about Gullah Geechee culture and history in classrooms. Coastal Carolina University students, for instance, created multimedia projects about Gullah foodways through support from the Charles Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies, and the student-driven publishing lab the Athenaeum Press. Twelve students contributed articles, photography and graphic design to the project, funded by a $150,000 Mellon Foundation pilot grant. Students wrote about the history and cultural significance of rice, hibiscus, peas, watermelon and collard greens within the Gullah Geechee community.

“Recently published literature such as Natalie Daise’s Okra Stew: A Gullah Geechee Family Tradition, and Rita Woods’s The Last Dreamwalker serve as new tools for teachers to introduce Gullah Geechee culture to their students, said Dr Tamara Butler, the executive director of the Avery Research Center. Teaching about Gullah Geechee foodways is one way that classrooms can connect to the community’s history and heritage, particularly in the face of environmental changes.

“ ‘Gullah Geechee folks’ struggles are included in environmental sciences. We’re expanding beyond the English classroom and social studies classroom and into the science classrooms as well,’ Butler said. ‘Foodways are one of the ways you can get at that: what foods are available to us in the face of climate change? What’s available to us as people are being displaced? What recipes can we still hold on to and adapt, especially now as prices are going up, and fertilizer is not available? …

“As part of the Coastal Carolina University project, it was important to [Zenobia Harper, the Joyner Institute director] and Alli Crandell, the director of the Athenaeum Press, to give back to the Gullah Geechee community. The students helped five Gullah makers increase their social media presence and designed packages for their products.”

More at the Guardian, here.This sounds like a great way to educate young people. But the story makes me wonder why state and federal governments don’t contribute more to such quality education. Did you notice how many charitable funders were mentioned, even from abroad?

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For Culture, Leave Phones at the Door

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Grace Coudal.
The Fulfillment Center organizers give attendees small cloth pouches to place their phones inside of for the duration of their “unplugged” events.

One day in the early 2000s, I was astonished to see a well-dressed woman walking down the sidewalk, apparently talking to herself. It took a moment to understand she was on the phone.

Before I knew it, there were numerous people on the commuter rail having long, loud, personal conversations as I tried to read a novel or sleep.

We’re not talking about that long ago. It was a time that many of us started to hate phones. Nowadays in Chicago, creatives are deciding to do something about the way phones have taken over.

Ambar Colón writes at WBEZ Chicago, “During the first weekend of May, dozens of people filed into a River North coworking space for what was billed as a hands-on, phone-free experience.

“After slipping their devices into small cloth pouches stamped with the words ‘Fulfillment Center,’ visitors made their way over to a pair of industrial shelves stacked with activity boxes labeled ‘make,’ ‘play,’ ‘read’ and ‘write.’ Inside the boxes, they found crafts, readable materials and games — plenty of things to do instead of scrolling endlessly on their mobile phones.

“Meanwhile, up in Edgewater, theater leaders from [producingbody] are introducing audiences to magnetically locking Yondr pouches, starting [in May] with the Chicago premiere of Spaceman. …

“If you want a deep dive into Chicago arts and culture, check your phone at the door: The ‘unplugged’ trend is growing locally among arts groups responding to a collective desire for more phone-free experiences. …

“For some Chicago cafes and lounges, such as Kibbitznest Books, Brews & Blarney and Verzênay in Lincoln Park, the unplugged trend is nothing new. These cafes are intentionally Wi-Fi-free, opting for board games and books instead of a sea of silent and disconnected remote workers.

“Major musicians such as Phoebe Bridgers and David Byrne have enforced no-phone zones at their events, too, using similar phone pouches, or in the case of Byrne’s ‘Theater of the Mind‘ theater installation in River North, requesting fans place their devices in lockers.

“The idea for the phone-free Fulfillment Center — a pop-up for people of all ages — started with a simple question, event creator and Little Council marketing co-founder Jessa Fuller said: ‘What if we took up a little bit of space in our communities with a center that was geared toward personal fulfillment?’ …

“After guests picked one of the four boxes [at the center], they took the box over to a table dubbed the ‘line’ and unpacked it. Inside, the materials and packing slip described the activity: ‘play’ boxes included classic games like Uno and Jenga, while ‘make’ boxes contained magazines and other supplies for collage-making.

“One box contained supplies for a game of ‘exquisite corpse’ — a drawing game invented in the 1920s, where artists come together to create a character without seeing the previous contributions. …

“ ‘Read’ boxes included articles from Chicago-based publications, such as copies of The Pub (which is print-only), or the Poetry Foundation’s poetry magazine. And inside the ‘write’ boxes, attendees received bios of older adults (through the group Love For Our Elders), and were inspired to write letters to friends and family. …

“Up north at the theater, [producingbody] founders Amy Carpenter and Taylor Dalton said their aim with the phone-free push is to restore the communal intimacy of traditional theater. …

“Plenty of humans are ‘addicted’ to their phones, even if just a little bit, Carpenter said. Though reminders to silence or power off phones are ubiquitous with pre-show warmups across Chicago theaters, devices are still a problem, she added.

“ ‘It’s tough because you want to believe that people will follow instructions, and then we just see time and time again that they don’t,’ Carpenter said.

“Spaceman, written by Brooklyn-based playwright Leegrid Stevens, is a solo show about an astronaut who’s traveling to Mars with the sole task of laying the roots for a Martian colony. All that alone time gives the astronaut plenty of time to sit with her own thoughts and fears about life on Earth and what might await her when she arrives on the red planet. Carpenter and Dalton want the phone-free experience to mirror the protagonist’s isolation.

Upon check-in, guests will receive a Yondr pouch and sit, without the comfort of doom-scrolling, for at least 15 minutes before the show starts.

“ ‘That will inevitably give the audience a taste of our protagonist’s experience,’ they said.

“Still, phone-free rules can be risky for businesses, especially when social media is the top source for information and news about cultural events. …

“ ‘It is a risk. But I think the hope here is to ultimately make it worth it for [audiences],’ Dalton said. ‘We wanna make the experience so special inside the theater that they forget that they don’t have access to their phones.’ ”

More at WBEZ, here.

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Harlem Renaissance Revisited

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Photo: William Greaves Productions.
The film Once Upon a Time in Harlem centers on a cocktail party William Greaves hosted in August 1972 with men snd women of the Harlem Renaissance who were still living. 

Many Americans know of the Harlem Renaissance as the flourishing of African American arts and culture in New York in the 1920s and 1930s. But a documentary about it was filmed mostly in the 1970s when William Greaves rounded up the remaining members of the movement and had a party.

Nadia Khomami explained recently at the Guardian, “In 1969, the pioneering documentarian William Greaves wrote of his fury over the racially degrading stereotypes that white film producers threw up on American screens. …

“Three years later, Greaves began work on what he considered the most important footage he ever shot: a feature documentary gathering surviving figures of the Harlem Renaissance to reflect on the movement they had built half a century earlier.

“Now, more than 50 years after cameras rolled, Once Upon a Time in Harlem is finally receiving its international premiere in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight – completed not by William Greaves, who died in 2014, but by his son David and granddaughter Liani.

“The documentary centers on a cocktail party Greaves hosted at Duke Ellington’s townhouse in Harlem in August 1972 – an attempt to capture the voices of artists, writers, musicians and organisers whose work had transformed Black American culture in the 1920s, but whose stories were already at risk of being sidelined.

“Greaves invited every surviving participant he could locate. Many had not seen one another for decades. They included the painter Aaron Douglas; the queer artist and writer Richard Bruce Nugent; the poet Arna Bontemps; the musicians Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle; the photographer James Van Der Zee; and Ida Mae Cullen, the widow of Countee Cullen.

“For four hours, Greaves filmed them as they laughed, reminisced and debated. The resulting film follows the rhythm of the party itself: tentative greetings and warm memories gradually giving way to animated debates over politics, language and legacy.

“David Greaves, who was there in 1972 aged 22, worked on the shoot as a cameraman under his father. …

“Duke Ellington himself was unwell and did not attend, but his sister Ruth was present. ‘There were four cameras, two crews circulating through the apartment catching conversations, these little moments between them,’ David said. ‘Mostly my father just let them freestyle, it was very fluid.’

“Among the film’s strengths is precisely that looseness. At one point, guests debate whether the term ‘Negro’ should be discarded in favor of ‘Afro-American.’ Elsewhere, they discuss Marcus Garvey and Langston Hughes and the global reverberations of anti-colonial struggle. Aaron Douglas reflects on jazz, telling the room: ‘It would be considered a revolution in relation to other music. It was not a revolution to us.’

“For David Greaves, those conversations feel strikingly current. ‘When they talk about whether to call themselves Black or Negro, that’s a discussion still happening now – you’ve got Black, African American, people of color. And then there is still this question of what the diaspora should do in relation to Africa.’ …

“The film also reminds viewers how recent America’s racial violence remains. David points to footage accompanying the anti-lynching poem ‘The Lynching,’ ending on a young white girl watching with what he calls ‘fiendish glee. … The US is not that far away from that time.’ …

“For him, the film arrives as Black history is once again being fought over in the US. … ‘They’ve been doing everything they can to erase the Black experience in America, even removing signage from park service sites. What this film does is show a group of wonderful people sitting around talking about a time 50 years ago, and about their own present. These giant intellectuals that the media didn’t even realize existed.’ …

“After William’s death, the material passed to his widow Louise, who continued working on it until her own death in 2023. David and Liani then took over, restoring and digitizing 60,000 feet of 16mm film. …

“When shaping the final cut, he followed one of his father’s principles: ‘My dad used to say if there’s something that affects you viscerally, go with it.’ …

“David, who has spent the past three decades publishing Our Time Press, a Brooklyn community newspaper focused on Black civic and cultural life, with his wife, Bernice Green, said he hoped to release the film in time for Greaves’ centenary in October, with retrospectives planned in New York and at the Barbican in London.

“ ‘My dad was appreciated by those who knew documentary film, but he didn’t have the acclaim that he has now,’ he said. ‘This film should cement him as a chronicler of the history of African Americans.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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A Khmer Swan Lake

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2026| 7 Comments »

Photo: James Higgins.
Khana Desen, Victoria Ung, Channa Sath, Rancia Phin and Sophorl Ngin as the white swans in the third act of A Khmer Swan Lake, performed recently in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Lowell, a city not far from where I live, is sometimes called a “gateway city” because it has hosted successive generations of immigrants and refugees looking for a new start. In the 1980s, the US State Department resettled many Cambodian refugees fleeing from a murderous regime. Today the imprint on the city is seen everywhere, and not just in the the delicious food immigrants always bring to a new land.

Jia H. Jung recently reported at WBUR about a production of a Cambodian version of Swan Lake by Angkor Dance Troupe (ADT).

“On a blustery spring evening,” Jung wrote, “dancers rehearse in the warm belly of the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. Sewn into sequined silk costumes and topped with golden crowns from Cambodia, they appear like 1,000-year-old statues brought to life.

“These are the diasporic stars of ‘A Khmer Swan Lake,’ a reimagining of Tchaikovsky’s ballet by the Angkor Dance Troupe using Robam Kenor classical Cambodian dance rooted in Indian Hinduism and Buddhism.

“The Khmer White Swan, Odette Devi, is modeled after Kenorei, a half-human, half-bird of Angkorian lore. The ending of her story trades Western tragedy for transcendence — barely allegory for how Cambodian/Khmer genocide survivors and their descendants have channeled their ancestral arts to empower their regeneration.

“ ‘I want us to be seen,’ said Bora Chiemruom, executive director of the Angkor Dance Troupe. ‘We’ve been here for 40 years. We’ve shaped the arts in this city.’

“Chiemruom first arrived in Lowell as a young refugee in 1987 after she and her family fled the Khmer Rouge regime that lasted from 1975 to 1979 in Cambodia.

“When she was 16, an ADT performance replaced inner torment about her identity with awe for the richness of her heritage. But it wasn’t until 2022 that she got directly involved with the organization, bringing with her the goal of innovation and centering the troupe in the arts scene.

“She grew ADT to a staff of three employees and 25 instructors, who teach 150 to 200 pupils a year, with another 25 on the waitlist. The next challenge was figuring out how to expand upon intangible treasures that have survived up until now by staying set in stone.

“She raised the idea of retelling Swan Lake to the Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) two years ago. Once the partnership went forward, the pressure to embody the story while doing justice to Khmer dance and ballet felt immense. This was also the first full-scale dance production MRT had ever undertaken. …

“She chose principal dancers Peter Veth and Chummeng Soun as the show’s creative director and program director. …

“ ‘Dancing is in my blood,’ Veth said. A son of genocide survivors, he began attending ADT’s classes as a young child in the 1990s, sneaking to rehearsals downtown.

“Ten years later, Soun was a new Cambodian immigrant kid in town, saw Veth perform and decided to follow suit. Together, they co-founded Urban Khmer Ballet, a grassroots collective incorporating traditional dance elements while carving out new spaces for creative expression.

“In preparation for A Khmer Swan Lake, the duo traveled to Cambodia last fall to work with 10 dance masters and 10 musicians – among the last living artists from before the genocide who saved their civilization’s royal arts from extinction.

“With them on the trip was Phousita Huy, artistic director of ADT and an internationally renowned Khmer classical dance master who trained at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh and moved to Lowell in 1996. …

“The team placed paramount importance on earning the permission and blessings of the masters to reproduce sacred repertoire outside of Cambodia. This vetting process was also an opportunity to document the knowledge of culture keepers in Cambodia before it’s too late.

“It wasn’t easy, but a crucial part of moving forward, according to Soun.

“ ‘This creative negotiation process is the process of transmitting information, knowledge from generation to generation,’ Soun said. ‘And that’s why this form of art perseveres in the diaspora — because it allows itself to evolve.’

“The original production score, recorded in Cambodia, features Khmer instruments playing traditional numbers with glimmers of Tchaikovsky’s familiar Swan Theme. Huy, Veth and Soun worked with the masters to preserve traditional movements in the choreography, changing formation and positioning when necessary for narrative clarity and synchronization with the music.

“Veth was in charge of making sure all interpretations would land with U.S. audiences, bridging cultural differences with modifications.”

Beautiful photos at WBUR, here. See also an article at DanceTeacher about the troupe’s leader, here.

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The Dying Art of Stone Lifting

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2026| 7 Comments »

Photo: Johnny Savage/The Guardian.
David Keohan, aka Indiana Stones, lifting a stone on a beach in County Waterford. 

When the great James Hackett first visited his cousins in New Shoreham, Rhode Island, he commented on how much the island looked like his native Ireland. He wasn’t the first notice. It’s largely because of the ubiquitous stone walls.

Some of those walls have giant boulders placed strategically as a base. Today I’m learning that such boulders have a long history in Ireland, a history most contemporary Irish knew nothing about. Rory Carroll writes at the Guardian about the man who dug out the history.

“David Keohan surveyed the County Waterford beach and spotted a familiar mound half-buried in sand: an oval-shaped limestone boulder. It weighed about 115kg [~253 lb].

“He wedged it loose with a crowbar, wiped it dry with a cloth, dusted his hands with chalk and paused to gaze at the Irish Sea, as if summoning strength from the waves pounding ashore.

“He hunkered down, gripped the boulder and hoisted it to his lap. Legs trembling, Keohan straightened his knees and hoisted the weight up to his chest, close enough to kiss it. Two seconds later he lowered and dropped the boulder, which thudded back on to the sand.

“It was a demonstration of the ancient sport of stone lifting. Keohan has almost single-handedly revived the practice in Ireland and helped stir global interest.

“ ‘It’s not just about strength. Every single lifting stone has an amazing story attached to it,’ said Keohan, 47. …

“To his fanbase Keohan is better known by his Instagram handle Indiana Stones. On there, he is a scholarly Hercules who parses myth, folklore and literature to locate boulders around Ireland that for centuries were used to test strength and bond communities.

“Some were lifted at funeral games to honor the dead, some to celebrate harvest festivals and some to mark a chieftain’s ascension, said Keohan. ‘One stone was almost like a job interview to become a stonemason – you had to be strong enough to lift it.’

“To lift a designated stone … a few inches above the ground was known as ‘getting the wind under it,’ said Keohan. ‘That was a great day in a young man’s life. If you lift it to your knees, you’re a champion. Lift it up to your chest, you are a phenomenon of strength and spoken about for generations to come.’

“He has identified 53 lifting stones, spanning beaches, fields and graveyards, and hopes to locate dozens more. To lift such a stone today is to connect with all those who previously managed the feat, a continuum that in some cases stretches back millennia, said Keohan. …

“Few in Ireland had heard of the sport until Keohan stumbled into it.

“When Covid restrictions shut gyms in 2020, the former kettlebell lifting champion started using stones in his garden as weights. Galvanized by documentaries about stone lifting in Scotland, Iceland and the Basque region, he made a post-Covid ‘pilgrimage’ to the 127kg [280 lb] Fianna stone in Scotland. ‘It was strength, mythology, history. I fell in love with it.’

“After reading Liam O’Flaherty’s 1937 short story ‘The Stone,’ about an elderly man who tries to lift the ‘manhood stone’ of his youth, Keohan tracked down a pink-tinged granite lump that matched the story’s description on the Atlantic island of Inishmore, where O’Flaherty grew up.

“Now, a sport that was all but forgotten boasts a devoted following on Instagram and TikTok, and a competition organized by a group called Irish Stone Monsters. The ride-sharing company Lyft has sponsored a stone lifting studio at a Dublin gym.

“Enthusiasts trek to remote rural areas to try to lift designated stones. A stone in County Clare named after Mrs Kildea, a possibly apocryphal figure who reputedly lifted an enormous boulder, has inspired women to take part. Last year a boulder known as Cloch Bán, or White Stone, was shipped to enthusiasts in Boston.

“Stone lifting practices existed across Europe, Asia and Africa, said Conor Heffernan, a cultural historian at Ulster University. The legend of the warrior Finn McCool creating a path to Scotland by laying basalt columns in the sea – the Giant’s Causeway – illustrates Ireland’s connection to its rocky landscape, said Heffernan. …

“Keohan and Heffernan are seeking to get stone lifting included in Ireland’s inventory of intangible cultural heritage – a first step to Unesco recognition.

“Guided by local lore, the National Folklore Collection, and tips from Instagram followers, Keohan has found dozens more stones around Ireland. ‘This dam burst of information came out,’ he said. ‘It has given me purpose and a reattachment to what it means to be Irish.’ …

“The father of three, who works at a construction depot in Waterford, has tapped into a passion for Irish culture that has also boosted the Irish language, road bowling and TikTok’s #GaelTok content. Keohan has written a forthcoming book, The Wind Beneath the Stone.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Norwegian Ballet Tackles Indigenous Topic

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 13, 2026| 3 Comments »

Photo: David B Torch.
Recently the Norwegian National Ballet tackled the delicate subject of a 19th century rebellion by the indigenous Sami people. The non-Sami dancers wondered if they had the right to tell the story.

Indigenous reindeer herders called the Sami have a presence in the north of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia — and the sort of history indigenous people have experienced around the world. Was the Norwegian National Ballet reckless in trying to bring a 19th century Sami rebellion to life using non-Sami dancers?

Lisa Abend wrote at the New York Times in November, “Far in the north of Norway, a test of sorts was underway. Two weeks earlier, the ballet ‘Lahppon/Lost‘ had premiered at the Opera House in Oslo. Created by a Sami artist about a Sami uprising, and danced by the Norwegian National Ballet, the work had opened to largely positive reviews. But last Friday, ‘Lahppon/Lost started a two-night run in Kautokeino, a cultural capital for the Indigenous Sami people and the very town where the rebellion it depicts took place.

“ ‘The audience was five times bigger in Oslo, but I was more nervous here,’ said the creator and co-choreographer of ‘Lahppon/Lost,’ Elle Sofe Sara, whose ancestors participated in the uprising. ‘I knew that so many descendants of the rebellion would be there, and … I was asking myself: “Have we done it in a good way?” ‘ …

“When the work premiered at the Opera House on Oct. 31, it was the first time a piece by a Sami choreographer had been presented on the main stage. It was also part of a recent wave of commissions from leading arts institutions that have recognized Norway’s long history of forced assimilation of and discrimination against the Indigenous group, which is widely considered Europe’s oldest. …

“For Ingrid Lorentzen, the Norwegian National Ballet’s artistic director, who commissioned the work, and for the company’s dancers, none of whom are Sami, the performance raised questions about whether they had the right to tell the story. …

“Said Lorentzen, ‘Are we again stepping over the voices that we are trying to create space for?’ …

“For the Sami, the Kautokeino rebellion remains a sensitive subject. During the 1852 uprising, Sami followers of a strict Christian sect attacked Norwegian authorities, including the local sheriff and priest. … In the aftermath, church and state stepped up their efforts to ‘Norwegianize’ the Indigenous group, which continued into the 1960s.

“For well over a century, the rebellion was shrouded in shame among the Sami. But a political and cultural awakening in the 1970s prompted a gradual re-evaluation, and today the causes and meaning of the Kautokeino uprising are contested, with some viewing it as an example of religious fanaticism and others considering it an early Indigenous rejection of the authorities’ ongoing suppression of Sami rights and culture.

“Among the predominantly Indigenous audience that filled the seats of Kautokeino’s Sami National Theater, several attendees confessed to pre-curtain anxiety . … ‘I was so nervous,’ said Ayla Nutti, 20. ‘I was worried they wouldn’t get it right.’

“It was precisely the uprising’s complexity that drew Sara to the story. From her research, she knew that the episode still carried a heavy emotional burden. ‘We did interviews with descendants, and some of them didn’t want to talk about it, or they would talk and then tell us to delete the conversation,’ she said. …

“The dancing in ‘Lahppon/Lost’ is intensely physical, and much of it was devised by Sara’s collaborator, the Icelandic choreographer Hlin Hjalmarsdottir. The dancers whip the ground with fury and twist their bodies with an energy that oscillates between tortured and ecstatic. Combined with video close-ups of the dancers’ faces, and striking costumes from the Danish designer Henrik Vibskov, the muscular movement gives ‘Lahppon/Lost’ a contemporary feel.

“Yet the work remains thoroughly Sami. Much of that character can be attributed to Lavre Johan Eira, who performs a Sami form of throat singing called joiking that is believed to convey the living essence of its subject. ‘Lahppon/Lost’ opens with Eira’s haunting version of a joik. …

“By all accounts — and two standing ovations — they succeeded. ‘Sometimes when you see non-Sami dancers, there is a distance between them and the Sami stories,’ said Kristin Solberg, the director of a Sami theater in Mo i Rana, Norway. ‘But these dancers embodied them and gave movement to the land. I felt like I was watching my story.’

“[Reindeer herder] Sokki found himself in tears. ‘It didn’t matter that the dancers weren’t Sami,’ he said. ‘They made the rebellion come closer. It was magic.’

“In the intimate space of the Kautokeino theater, the performers felt that magic, too. And it didn’t end with the curtain. As they stepped outside after the final show, the Northern Lights were casting swirling bands of luminescence against the night sky. ‘It’s the perfect ending,’ said [dancer] de Block. ‘We released the spirits tonight.’ ”

More at the Times, here. Lots of great little videos.

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Minnesota’s Somali Dance Troupe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Haley Friesen.
The Somali Museum Dance Troupe practiced at the Tapestry Folk Dance Center in Minneapolis a few years ago.

It has not been an easy adjustment for Somali refugees who were settled in Minnesota years ago. It’s been especially hard for new generations to find their way. So I’m happy to read about the positive things.

Amina Isir Musa reports at Sahan Journal that “the Somali Museum Dance Troupe’s TikTok presence has helped popularize traditional dances among U.S.-born Somalis.”

She says, “In the basement of the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis you might find yourself transported to a different land. As you walk toward the Somali Museum of Minnesota, you might hear the joyful sounds of the jaandheer, a traditional dance from the Sanaag region of the Somali peninsula. To many listeners, particularly those from the Northern Somali region, the music says, Welcome home.

“On a recent day, a group of young Somali Minnesotans practiced the dance as their instructor replayed the past 30 seconds of music over and over until they got it right. The instructor, Abdurahman Muhumed, a young man with braided hair, had recently performed with the Somali Museum Dance Troupe  at the ‘Star of Unity’ concert at the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul. As a more experienced dancer, he was training the others as part of the troupe’s leadership training component. 

“A few days later, several members of the 20-member Somali Museum Dance Troupe –- Bashir Ismail, Ayan Furreh, Harun Mohammed and their coach, Mohamoud Osman Mohamed, who is also artistic director of the Somali Museum, talked about their work and their passion for celebrating Somali culture through dance. 

“Mohamoud helped found the Somali Museum Dance Troupe nearly 10 years ago to share his love of that culture and to elevate its artistic expression. His father, Osman Ali, had told him about the importance Somali performing arts held before that country’s long-raging civil war, and the two of them combined efforts to create the Somali Museum Dance Troupe. 

“In its early years, the troupe consisted of young recent immigrants who knew a lot of dances from back home and wanted to share those same dance styles,” and it has since grown to include many enthusiastic young people who have never known Somalia. For more about the dance troupe, click here.

The Sahan Journal has also covered what’s going on with a community leader my husband and I got to know when we lived in Minneapolis, Mohamed Wardere. Having once worked in community outreach for a US Senator, he is now “executive director of Hiddo Soor, a Somali nonprofit that hosts cultural events.” He said that “Somali business owners around the state, who sponsor the festivals, requested events in their towns so that their neighbors could understand their culture. 

“Wardere said when he began hosting cultural festivals, most attendees were members of the Somali community, but in recent years the wider community has participated in the festivities. Last year, about 4,000 people attended the festival in Plymouth, he said. 

“Wardere said he is excited that more people are learning about Somali history and gaining respect for his culture.” Mohamed was always good at sharing understanding of Somali culture.

Read the article by Yvette Higgins on the celebration of Somali independence, its “street festival in Minneapolis, a multiday soccer tournament, a concert at the Ordway, and festivals in Plymouth, Rochester, Owatonna and St. Cloud.” That story is here.

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Tribal Radio Needed CPB

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 19, 2025| 4 Comments »

Any one change has a cascading effect, and for tribes’ radio stations, the recent change to Corporation for Public Broadcasting has posed an existential threat. More than music is involved here. It’s about keeping a culture alive.

Neel Dhanesha reports at Neiman Lab, “In the most remote parts of Alaska, staying in touch can involve a bit more effort than sending a text. Cell service is spotty, highways are nonexistent, and the postal service remains a vital lifeline, delivering supplies and mail by plane. But for anyone who wants to broadcast a different kind of message — a reminder to pick up milk, for example, or birthday wishes — there’s always the Muktuk Telegram.

“Named for a traditional food of whale skin and blubber, the Muktuk Telegram (also called the Mukluk Telegraph, after a phrase referring to how gossip spreads in Alaska) is sort of like an amplified shout: Someone calls into a radio station with a message, and it gets broadcast on their airwaves so that anyone in range with a radio tuned to the right frequency will hear it. Usually, the radio station broadcasting the Telegram is one of the fifteen tribal radio stations in Alaska. But now, after Congress took away $9.4 billion in previously allocated public media funding and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) subsequently announced it will shut down, the future of those stations, the Telegram, and tribal public media across the country is up in the air.

“ ‘Stations are trying to figure it out,’ said Jaclyn Sallee, president and CEO of KNBA, a tribal radio station in Anchorage, and Koahnic Broadcast Corporation, which produces shows that are distributed to tribal radio stations across the country. …

“Indigenous radio and television stations are unique in the landscape of American media. While many are part of the NPR and PBS networks, they are mostly staffed by Indigenous reporters and producers and primarily serve audiences in tribal nations around the U.S., many of which lack broadband or cell service. According to Native Public Media, an NPR-like network for tribal stations, there are 57 tribal radio and 3 tribal television stations in 20 states in its network across the country, and most if not all of them received CPB funding before the rescissions package passed.

“ ‘When a Tribal station goes dark, the silence is more than technical,’ said Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, in an emailed statement to Nieman Lab. ‘These stations are not just media outlets, they are cultural infrastructure. … Without these stations, many Tribal citizens, especially elders, low-income families, and those without broadband, would lose essential access to news and public discourse.’

Among the essential services at risk are emergency alerts, which are particularly crucial in areas with gaps in cellular coverage.

“At particular risk is the Missing Endangered Persons Alert, a new type of alert similar to an AMBER alert that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted in August 2024 and that is set for national launch in September. According to the FCC’s website, ‘The MEP code could be particularly beneficial to Tribal communities, where American Indians and Alaska Natives are at a disproportionate risk of violence, murder, or vanishing.’ …

“Kathryn Squyres reported in Current, a spokesperson from Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) office explained that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will distribute $9.4 million of previously appropriated funding to 35 tribal radio stations in 11 states, which matches the amount those stations received from the CPB in fiscal year 2025. But it’s unclear what will happen after this year’s grants are dispersed, or to the 22 radio stations and nine states left out of that deal. …

“In an emailed statement, a spokesperson from the Department of the Interior wrote that ‘a transfer of previously appropriated federal funds allows Interior to support tribal communications infrastructure through targeted grants. Indian Affairs will administer these funds under established authorities. At this time, Indian Affairs anticipates awarding the first set of contracts by the end of Fiscal Year 2025 or early Fiscal Year 2026.’ It’s not clear where that funding is coming from, or whether other programs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs will be affected by the funding being reappropriated.

“It wouldn’t be the first time stations have been funded through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Before the CPB was created in 1967, says Mark Trahant, who spearheaded the revival of ICT (formerly Indian Country Today), tribal stations received funding through the BIA for almost 40 years. Trahant, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe of Idaho, said the funding Rounds claims to have secured is probably ‘a handshake. And I don’t think it’ll be anywhere near what’s being funded [through CPB] now.’ …

“If the DOI funding gets delayed for any reason [stations] may have to shut down. For now, said Sue Matters, station manager at KWSO, a tribal station on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, ‘everyone’s scrambling.’

“If stations disappear, Trahant said, he’s worried about what might fill the gap. …

“Trahant said. ‘To me, this is a question of who owns the airwaves. The great thing about CPB was that it set as a national standard that the public owns the airwaves, and they have an investment in that. I think that’s what’s really been missing from this debate.’ ”

More at Nieman Lab, here.

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Preserving Gullah Music

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 6, 2025| 1 Comment »

Photo: AP/Luis Andres Henao.
“Voices of Gullah” members, Joe Murray, from left, Minnie “Gracie” Gadson, Rosa Murray and Charles “Jojo” Brown, sing Gullah spirituals at the Brick Baptist Church, St Helena Island, South Carolina.

Not long ago, I read a fascinating memoir called The Water Is Wide, by Pat Conroy, about teaching poor children on a South Carolina island in 1969-1970. The depravation on that island was troubling to read about.

Today’s story about a different South Carolina island shows a different side. The island elders in this article about preserving tradition have agency.

Luis Andres Henao writes for the Associated Press (AP), “Minnie ‘Gracie’ Gadson claps her hands and stomps her feet against the floorboards, lifting her voice in a song passed down from her enslaved ancestors who were forced to work the cotton and rice plantations of the South Carolina Sea Islands.

“It’s a Gullah spiritual, and the 78-year-old singer is one of a growing group of artists and scholars trying to preserve these sacred songs and their Gullah Geechee culture for future generations. …

“On a recent summer day, her voice rang out inside Coffin Point Praise House. It’s one of three remaining wooden structures on St. Helena Island that once served as a place of worship for the enslaved, and later, for generations of free Black Americans.

“Gadson grew up singing in these praise houses. Today, as a Voices of Gullah member, she travels the U.S. with others in their 70s and 80s singing in the Gullah Creole language that has West African roots.

“ ‘This Gullah Geechee thing is what connects us all across the African diaspora because Gullah Geechee is the blending of all of these cultures that came together during that terrible time in our history called the trans-Atlantic slave trade,’ said Anita Singleton-Prather, who recently performed and directed a play about Gullah history.

“The show highlighted Gullah contributions during the American Revolution, including rice farming and indigo dying expertise. At the theater entrance, vendors offered Gullah rice dishes and demonstrated how to weave sweetgrass into baskets.

“More than 5,000 descendants of enslaved plantation workers are estimated to live on St. Helena Island, the largest Gullah community on the South Carolina coast where respect for tradition and deep cultural roots persists.

“Singleton-Prather [says] that despite slavery’s brutality, the Gullah people were able to thrive, ‘giving our children a legacy — not a legacy of shame and victimization, but a legacy of strength and resilience.’ …

” ‘It’s important to preserve the Gullah culture, mainly because it informs us all, African Americans, where they come from and that it’s still here,’ said Eric Crawford, author of Gullah Spirituals: The Sound of Freedom and Protest in the South Carolina Sea Islands.

“For most of his life, he hadn’t heard the word Gullah. That changed in 2007 with a student’s master’s thesis about Gullah culture in public schools.

“ ‘As I began to investigate it, I began to understand that “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Roll Jordan Roll,” “Kumbaya!” — all these iconic songs came from this area,’ he said.

“Versions of these songs, he said, can be traced back to the 19th century when ‘Slave Songs of the United States,’ the first book of African American spirituals, was recorded on St. Helena Island. …

“He was so curious that he traveled to St. Helena, where he met the singers and began recording their music. … Crawford said, sitting on the original wooden pews of the island’s Mary Jenkins Praise House, ‘They were forced to go to their owners’ church and stay in the balcony. But then in the evening, typically on Sunday evenings, Tuesday and Thursday, they had this space by themselves, away from the watchful eye of the owners, and they could engage in their own songs.’ …

“At a recent concert they clapped their hands in one rhythm, stomped the floor in another and swayed, singing at the island’s Brick Baptist Church.

“ ‘These singers are as close as we would ever come to how the enslaved sang these songs,’ Crawford said. ‘That authenticity — you just cannot duplicate that.’

“He began to take the singers on tour in 2014. Since then, they’ve performed across the U.S. as well as in Belize and Mexico. The touring band’s members include Gadson; 89-year-old Rosa Murray; 87-year-old Joe Murray; and their son, Charles ‘Jojo’ Brown.

“ ‘I’m gonna continue doing it until I can’t do it no more, and hope that younger people will come in, others younger than me, to keep it going,’ said Brown who, at 71. …

“His mother agrees. Sitting in her living room, surrounded by framed photos of dozens of grandchildren, she said she’ll continue singing for them.

“ ‘I hope and pray one or two of them will fall in my footsteps,’ she said.”

More about the Gullah culture at AP, here.

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Swedes Try to Define Their Culture

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 21, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Ola Lewitschnik for the New York Times.
What defines Sweden? A sauna in the cold? Abba songs? Painted red horses? IKEA?

As Suzanne’s family heads off to Sweden to experience Erik’s culture for a few months, I notice that the New York Times has an interest in trying to define that culture. So does the currrent Swedish government.

I guess diversity of opinion is part of the culture as not everyone thinks the initiative is a good idea.

Imogen West-Knights writes, “What is Swedish culture? Some obvious answers might spring to mind: Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman, Pippi Longstocking, IKEA. It’s an almost impossibly broad question — but one that Sweden’s government is trying to answer.

“In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an ‘experts’ canon and a ‘people’s canon.’ The first involves academics, journalists, historians and other authorities who will decide on 100 works or other items of cultural importance that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture.

“The second will be made up of suggestions submitted by the Swedish public to the Culture Canon website, which can be drawn from the arts or can include everyday activities like the daily ‘fika‘ coffee and cake break or ideas like ‘Allemansrätten,’ the Swedish right to explore nature, even on private land. So far, suggestions include saunas and the plays of August Strindberg, the 1361 Battle of Visby and Björn Borg’s five straight Wimbledon victories. …

“Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden. The Culture Canon is a pet project of a party with far-right roots that supports, but is not part of, the government. Many in the arts scene fear that the results will project a narrow view of Swedish culture, glorifying an imagined past and shutting out the cultural contributions of minorities.

“Lars Trägårdh, a historian whom the government appointed to lead the project, said in an interview that the Culture Canon would be particularly useful for helping immigrants integrate. …

” ‘Most of the culture world is against the idea of a canon,’ said Ida Ölmedal, the culture editor of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet: ‘It’s being used as a populist tool to point out what is Swedish and not, and to exclude some people from the concept of Swedishness.’

“ ‘But even if it wasn’t nationalist, it would still be wrong for politicians to point out what is important culture,’ Ölmedal added. ‘We have a proud tradition of the government financing culture without trying to govern culture — and this is an exception.’

Martí Manen, the director of Index, a contemporary art foundation in Stockholm, said the Culture Canon was ‘a tool for a specific political agenda.’

“In the interview, Trägårdh rebuffed such objections. ‘They are not real arguments,’ he said, adding that he had no cultural loyalty to the left or the right. … He is a historian who works on issues of Swedish identity, such as in his 2006 book Is the Swede a Human Being?, which he cowrote with Henrik Berggren. … Trägårdh also rejected the idea that a cultural canon would exclude minorities from the concept of Swedishness. …

“Parisa Liljestrand, a member of the Moderate Party who is Sweden’s culture minister, said the project had been set up to be independent from government influence and was now ‘in the hands of the committee.’ It was the committee’s job, she added, ‘to find out what fields we should have a canon in, and also to establish criteria for selection of works.’

“One criteria the committee has set for the expert part of the canon is that it can only include entries that are at least 50 years old. This has stirred fears that the results will downplay the importance of cultural output by immigrants, most of whom arrived in Sweden after 1975. …

“[Said] Mattias Andersson, the artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theater, Sweden’s national playhouse, ‘It’s about trying to speak about the Sweden from the ’40s, or the ’50s, when everyone had the same God, the same impression of what the family is, of how to live your life.’ …

“For all the Culture Canon’s critics in the arts scene, there are also those who say it is too soon to judge. Victor Malm, the culture editor of the Expressen newspaper, said he was reserving his judgment until he read the final report.” More at the Times, here.

You know, asking immigrants who have been in Sweden a while to define Swedish culture would be most revealing. I am always surprised when immigrants tell me that a characteristic of the US is that people follow the laws. Relative to where some of them come from, ordinary Americans certainly do if not high-level officials and billionaires. We pay our taxes. We obey traffic directives. I’ve heard Swedes are very law-abiding, too.

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Promoting Fatherhood in Japan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 15, 2025| 7 Comments »

Photo:  Ken Yoshida at CarterJMRN.
Gen Z Japanese men are leading a cultural change that the government is fully supporting.

When my husband worked in Rochester, New York, we knew several coupes from Fuji Xerox who settled there for a period of years. I remember the laughs my friend Yuriko had over the effects of a different culture on Japanese men. She couldn’t get over the memory of a Japanese husband in a laundromat doing his own laundry. That would not happen at home in the 1970s.

Other cultural changes have been taking place since then.

Patrick Winn reported at Public Radio International’s The World about fatherhood in Japan, where traditionally, dads were not engaged with the daily lives of their children.

Winn writes, “Yuko Kuroda and her husband, Takashi Kuroda, live in a modest, two-story home in Tokyo’s outskirts. Both in their early 40s, Yuko Kuroda works at a daycare center, while Takashi Kuroda has a white-collar job. …

“In contemporary Japan, roughly one-third of women under the age of 50 do not have children. Couples who choose to raise kids usually stop at one. …

“Takashi Kuroda, his face streaked with black marker, just emerged from a rolling-on-the-floor play session with his son and daughter, aged 3 and 6, on a Sunday afternoon. The children drew whiskers on his cheeks while shouting, ‘Neko! Neko!’ (Japanese for ‘cat’). 

“ ‘I really recommend this lifestyle,’ he said. ‘Raising five kids is fun.’ …

“Officials warn that if the birth rate doesn’t rise, Japan could become unrecognizable in decades to come: less affluent, less vibrant and less powerful.

“What currently is deterring couples from raising children is being associated with overwork and sky-high housing prices. 

“But one of the major factors concerns dads ‘doing too little around the house,’ according to Mary Brinton, a Harvard University sociologist who has studied Japanese demographics for decades and has even advised Japanese officials.

“Traditionally, when Japanese couples have children, ‘women do most the housework and child care,’ Brinton said, and for working moms, the idea of holding down what is essentially a second, unpaid full-time job is ‘not very attractive.’ …

“Among the world’s high-income countries, including the US, fathers average more than two hours of daily housework and child care. In Japan, the average is only about 40 minutes. 

“But what erased Yuko Kuroda’s reluctance in raising five kids was that Takashi Kuroda wasn’t afraid to wipe a butt or wash a dish. 

“ ‘If one of the kids falls ill, he’ll immediately ask for a day off from work,’ she said. …

“Takashi Kuroda believes raising Japan’s birth rate requires a revolution in fatherhood. More than a decade ago, the government launched a social engineering campaign urging fathers to become ikumen, a Japanese word that loosely translates to ‘super dads.’ 

“Through public service announcements, namely posters, websites and online videos, Japan promoted this ideal of fatherhood. The ikumen eagerly burp babies, change diapers and walk toddlers to the park. …

“Fathering Japan, a nonprofit organization, contracted with the government to promote an ‘ikumen boom’ and teach fathers, through in-person classes, how to care for kids and do chores. 

“Manabu Tsukagoshi, a director with the group, believes it has successfully shifted fathers’ mindsets across Japan. But workplace culture is much harder to change. 

“Plenty of dads now want to live as ikumen, Tsukagoshi said, but — especially in white-collar jobs — they might toil for old-fashioned bosses who pressure workers to stay late and, after hours, bond over beer and sake. 

“Japan’s paternity-leave policies are now among the best in the world, but too many fathers fear taking time off work and risking the disapproval of their bosses or colleagues.

“ ‘I’m actually a bit ashamed of our Japanese men,’ Tsukagoshi said. ‘As employees, we have rights, but men hesitate to break from the norm. If other guys in the office aren’t taking paternity leave, they won’t feel keen to be the first.’

“But Takashi Kuroda is hopeful. He believes the revolution in fatherhood — in which dads stand up to corporations and put family first — is on the horizon. 

“Fifteen years ago, the rate of fathers taking paternity leave was almost zero. Only in recent years, it’s edged up to roughly 15% while by the decade’s end, Japan’s government hopes to up the rate to 85%.

“[Takashi Kuroda] credits Gen Z fathers for helping redefine what it means to be an attentive dad, unlike their own fathers, who often stuck with a corporation their entire working lives.

“ ‘Younger Japanese dads don’t feel like they have to belong to one company. So, they’re not so terrified of their bosses … and will stand up for themselves,’ he said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, which saw more parents working at home, spurred a higher number of fathers to refocus on family, Takashi Kuroda said. He’s among the fathers who not only demanded paternity leave but took an entire year off for his third child, also insisting on remote work. …

“By late afternoon, Yuko Kuroda read to her children from a storybook while Takashi Kuroda was in the kitchen, elbows deep in dirty dishes. The sink was full of bowls used for breakfast, and water-logged noodles swirled around the drain. He looked silly — the cat whiskers remaining on his face — as he radiated joy.

“ ‘I’m very, very, very happy,’ he said.

“When asked if he’d be happy to have a sixth child, he answered maybe, as Yuko Kuroda popped in to end the questioning.

“ ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Our car only seats seven people. This is it.’ ”

More at The World, here. Lovely pictures. No firewall.

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Preserving Dance in Africa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 3, 2025| 9 Comments »

Map: Maps of the World.
The National Ballet in the Central African Republic brings to life traditional dance forms from different ethnic groups across the country. 

In parts of Africa where colonialism glommed together disparate tribes with ancestral enmities, wars have continued off and on for decades. But the Central African Republic (CAR) is setting a different example, with the help of its national ballet company. The idea is to give all the CAR groups a moment in the sun by highlighting the dance traditions of each. The effort also brings people together in new ways.

In the following article, we learn about a number of ethnic dance groups, including the National Artistic Ensemble that performed recently at the Africa Day of School Feeding (ADSF) in Bouboui. [See the African Union site for an explanation of ADSF. Interesting.]

France24 reports: “The dancers shake their hips, kicking their feet to the beat of the age-old ‘dance of the caterpillars,’ typically performed in the south where the insects are gathered for food.

“Three times a week the National Ballet rehearses traditional dances of the many ethnic groups making up the Central African Republic.

” ‘The creations they ask of us are based on the particularities of each ethnicity. I’m Banda and I have to suggest dance steps from the Banda ethnic group,’ Sidoane Kolema, 43, said.

“They aim to preserve the heritage of the CAR, a mosaic of ethnic groups that is scarred by decades of conflict and instability and is among the world’s poorest countries.

“From behind the scenes, 26-year-old Intelligentsia Oualou began singing in Gbanu, the language of her native southwestern Ombella-M’poko region.

“To the jingle of bells and rhythmic thud of the drum and xylophone-like balafon, the spinning silhouettes of the other dancers soon appeared across the dilapidated stage, set up on waste ground in the capital Bangui.

” ‘All my relatives are artists and I’ve dreamed of being an artist too,’ said Oualou. She is one of 62 dancers in the National Artistic Ensemble, created by CAR President Faustin Archange Touadera in 2021.

” ‘Promoting our cultures means going to the hinterlands to find the different dance steps of the Central African Republic in order to create a show that is diverse,’ National Ballet choreographer Ludovic Mboumolomako, 55, said. He spent three weeks living among the Pygmies in their ancestral forests in the south in order to enrich his choreography with their dances, songs and ways of living. …

“The company is often called upon to perform the ancestral dances in public at political gatherings, inaugurations and official ceremonies. In front of officials or at festivals, they dance in costumes of raffia skirts topped with pearl belts and patterned wax-print fabrics.

” ‘We need to raise awareness among young people … by dancing the different dances of our different ethnic groups in front of everyone. Tomorrow, if we are no longer here, it will be up to them to take over,’ Kolema said.

“The dancers were even recently integrated into the civil service, just like the actors and musicians who also belong to the National Artistic Ensemble.

“One of the upsides is that the dancers ‘have not a subsidy, but a salary’ [Culture Minister Ngola Ramadan] said. …

“Kevin Bemon, 44, said he had been able to put his former ‘difficult’ life dancing at neighborhood wakes behind him, thanks to the monthly salary of [$124] – just over twice the minimum wage in the CAR. …

“For a decade until 2013, the CAR was wracked by civil wars and intercommunal conflict, and although the violence has lost intensity since 2018, tensions persist.

” ‘Traditional dance has brought us together. After the recent wars, different ethnic groups were divided. Thanks to dance, we’ve become children of the same family,’ Oualou said.”

Check out the great photos at France 24, here. No paywall.

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Persian Epic with 483 Puppets

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Gavin Doran.
“Song of the North” involves 483 puppets, 208 animated backgrounds, 16 masks and costumes and nine performers.

Here’s how an incredibly creative Iranian is showing the world something deeper than the stereotypes about his home country.

Jennifer Schuessler wrote about his puppet epic at the New York Times in March.

“On a recent afternoon on 42nd Street in Manhattan, a mythological bird was preparing to take flight. Backstage at the New Victory Theater, a black-clad puppeteer put on an elaborately stylized mask and stepped into a beam of light, throwing the shadow of fluttering hands onto a large scrim.

“Nearby, two other performers were gearing up to practice a sword fight. Then the music started, and a crew of nine began a full run-through of Song of the North, an elaborate shadow puppet staging of stories from the 10th-century Persian epic the Shahnameh.

“From the audience, the show unfolded like a seamless animation. But backstage, the next 80 minutes were half ballet, half mad scramble, as the performers grabbed hundreds of different puppets, props and masks stacked on tables and, with split-second timing, jumped in and out of the light beams streaming from two projectors.

“Leaning against a backstage wall was the show’s creator, Hamid Rahmanian. His role? ‘Stressing out,’ he said.

“Since premiering in 2022 in Paris, Song of the North (which is intended for audiences 8 and older) has received enthusiastic reviews and played to packed houses on three continents. Its arrival in the heart of Times Square [was] timed for Nowruz, the Persian new year celebration. It also coincides with the release of a new contemporary prose translation of the Shahnameh that Rahmanian produced in collaboration with the scholar Ahmad Sadri — the first complete English version by Iranians, Rahmanian said.

“The show is mind-dizzyingly complex, involving 483 puppets, 208 animated backgrounds, 16 character masks and costumes and nine performers who follow more than 2,300 separate cues.

“But the idea behind it, Rahmanian said, is simple: to bring the richness of Persian culture to young audiences and adults whose views of Iran may be dominated by negative stereotypes.

“ ‘Everything about Iran is seen through the lens of politics,’ he said. ‘Iranian culture is a symphony. But in the West, we only hear the drumbeat.’

“The Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is said to be the longest poem ever written by a single author — twice as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. It was composed by the Persian poet Abu al-Qasem Ferdowsi, who spent 33 years turning centuries of historical and mythological lore into more than 50,000 couplets.

“In Iran, where many people give their children names of characters (Rostom, Sohrab), it remains a cultural touchstone. But growing up in Tehran, Rahmanian, now 56, was resistant to his father’s admonitions to actually read it.

“He was more drawn to visual art, and by 19, he said, had founded his own graphic design business. In 1994, he moved to New York to study computer animation at the Pratt Institute. In 1996, he was hired by Disney, where he worked on projects like Tarzan … but he felt like he didn’t fit in, and left two years later. …

“In 2008, Hamid pivoted to what has become his life’s work: promoting the Shahnameh. … Rahmanian was inspired to create a theatrical piece after seeing a restored version of Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 silent film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, believed to be the oldest surviving full-length animated film. ‘I thought, “I want to do something like that!” ‘ he said. …

“Nazgol Ansarinia, a visual artist visiting from Tehran who was watching backstage, said she was amazed by both the intricacies of the performance and the immediacy of the storytelling.

“ ‘In Iran, everyone knows the stories and characters from the Shahnameh, but the text itself is not that accessible,’ she said. ‘Hamid has really made it accessible.’ ”

More at the Times, here. Beautiful photos and videos.

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