First, we have signed an exclusive distribution contract with a major distributor (Films for the Humanities and Sciences, a division of Films Media Corp.) for the educational version of our two best documentaries on world music and dance: A Zest for Life: Afro-Peruvian Rhythms, a Source of Latin Jazz, and Of Beauty and Deities: Music and Dance of India.
This means that these two documentaries should begin to enter the classroom in a meaningful way, and bring more awareness of some often overlooked aspects of cultural diversity.
 |
| A Zest for Life star Lalo Izquierdo with some Afro-Peruvian percussion instruments. |
A Zest for Life not only highlights a community and culture that few outside of Peru knows about, but will also underscore Afro-Peruvian's contributions to the world of music, especially in the form of the development of new percussion instruments. It will also underscore to the American public that the systematic forced importation of Africans brought across the ocean as slaves is not unique to the United States, complimenting Dr. Henry Louis Gates' fine work on this topic.
Of Beauty and Deities will allow students and others to learn more about the huge and important community of people of Asian Indian descent, part of the larger Indian diaspora. It shows how Hinduism is part of the fabric of the life of many people of Indian descent, and allows for understanding of a beautiful, ancient, and deeply spiritual performance tradition.
 | |
| The music that accompanies bharatanatyam dance is, like the dance, based on the Natya Shastra. |
We are very happy to have this opportunity.
Next, in the interest of informing the general public about the richness of ethnic and cultural diversity in the United States, we are preparing a campaign to inform public libraries of our series, Roots and Branches, which is a series of 30 minute interview shows with people of a very wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Our interview subjects are not only ethnically and culturally diverse, they represent a very wide range in terms of career.
To give you a taste of what we are offering in that respect, here is a trailer in which you see excerpts from three of the documentaries.
OUR NEXT POST will be about small businesses in Spain in the economic crisis.
