Cultural diversity and the arts, part 2-fusion or tradition?

Continuing the conversation we began back in late August about cultural diversity and the arts:  is fusion always such a great thing?

There is some truth to the suggestion that if everything turns to fusion, you will lose your foundation, your basis.  This would be a real shame not only because of so much art that would be lost, but because the fusion itself would rapidly become meaningless.

Yang Hsiong (Hmong) demonstrating the "ting."

And I believe we need to keep traditional art forms not only because they help us build new art, but also because they are of value in and of themselves.  Furthermore, in my opinion it is incorrect to assert traditional art forms are frozen in time, or that the only way traditional art forms can evolve to meet the changing world is to abandon their essence.

Traditional art forms can go deeper into their tradition and still remain true to their essence.  To me, this is the best of all possible worlds.  On the one hand, you have people experimenting with fusing different art forms, and on the other, you have those that maintain these art forms and make them more profound without engaging in any fusion.

Ernesto Olmos (of Mexico) with some of his paintings.

To bring it down to a personal level, I love flamenco--and the flamenco I love is what is now called "flamenco puro," the traditional form of the art.  I don't want it to be lost.

I don't like all these dancers who think that faster and more elaborate footwork takes the place of entering deeply into the art.  I don't want dancers who think they are the center of the show.  For me, the art is much more interesting if the singer is king-or queen-and if the dancer has to follow the singer.

Carmen dancing flamenco.

Yes, I like the dancer to have his-her moment in which to show off the fantastic rhythms that can be created with one's feet (rhythms that must be kept within the basic beat--the compas).  But this moment comes only after the singer has stopped.

And yes, I like the dancer to use his-her body in a fluid way, but only when that compliments the whole.

To sum up, I like the singer to dominate, and the dancer and guitarist to respect the singing.

In any event, here are links to web sites and blogs of some of the many festivals that are more inclined to respect the traditional over fusion:

Sacramento World Music & Dance Festival--LINK
Ethnic Dance Festival (in San Francisco)--LINK

And because there ARE art forms that are not part of music and dance--

THE NEXT BLOG will be about southern Indian classical bharatanatyam.

Cajón, cajita, quijada de burro, zapateado--Afro-Peruvian PERCUSSION plus guitar

For all you people out there who appreciate good percussion, and-or Afro-Peruvian music, give this one a try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWvhJTVggjY

And if you want to learn a few steps of that zapateado, we hope to have a short lesson at the release party for the Home Edition of "A Zest for Life."

Preparing to release the Home Edition of "A Zest for Life"

 

We're planning to release the Home Edition of "A Zest for Life:  Afro-Peruvian Music & Dance" in late November or early December in a release party in the East Bay (of the San Francisco Bay Area).  We'll have more news later, but in the meantime, here's the trailer:

Blogger is still injured...

Blogger is still injured but getting better. We plan to resume September 14th.

Injured Blogger

Blogger is injured and is asking for you to check back on Sept 7. Sorry!

Cultural diversity and the arts, part 1-enriching our heritages

There are almost always more than one side to every question.  In this and the subsequent blog, we'll look at some of the roles that cultural diversity and the arts can enrich our own cultural heritage(s).

I am going to assume that people from different cultures are reading this blog...but that all of us have a cultural heritage or in some cases, such as if our parents come from different backgrounds or we live in a country that is not the land of our ancestors, we may have two or more cultural backgrounds.

In California, there are a wealth of festivals celebrating different ethnic groups and their culture.

In California and frankly, in an awful lot of the world, we encounter people on a daily basis whose cultural background(s) is different from ours.  In some parts of the world, different cultural groups isolate themselves from each other, but in other areas, there is more curiosity and communication between cultural groups.

In California and much of the United States, as well as in Jerez de la Frontera and much of Spain, the past 30 years or so have seen a great deal of mixing and combining of traditional art forms as one reaction to this cultural diversity.  The process is often pretty selective, however.  For example, few people of either Anglo or Latino descent combine Asian classical dance forms with their own dances, and few castillano Spaniards mix Russian or central African music with their music.

In southern Spain, you find Castillianos, Gitanos, people from North Africa plus Senegalese and others.

But one of the key words of the day in the arts world is "fusion."  We see flamenco fusion, jazz fusion, opera borrowing extensively from all over, and we see people of Asian heritages in California mixing their traditions with hip hop, etc.  (even though this seems to be a one-way street).

My assumption is that this move towards fusion is not only a result of the greater ease of international travel and the movement of peoples--as refugees, ex-patriots, tourists, for business reasons, and so forth--but also due to television which has given the world an extremely distorted but deliberately attractive view of "American" culture.

Video games and movies have also played a role, of course.

OUR NEXT BLOG will consider "purity" vs. "fusion" within the topic of cultural diversity and the arts.