Africa

Do you have memories of dancing as a child? In your yard? To music in your living room when no one was watching? When you hear music, are you affected by the rhythm you hear? Do you start to tap your foot or bob your head in time to the music?
Do you think of Africa as a country or a continent? What images come to mind when you hear the word Africa ?

I decided to include the original question to make the subject of the blog make sense to anyone reading this from outside the class.

I only have two distinct memories of dancing as a child; the first, when I was very young. When a pretty ad or picture in a magazine article caught my eye, I would put it in a blue Crown Royal bag my Grandfather had given me. I had quite a collection that I would periodically spread out on my bead and admire – sort of a changing collage. I remember once hanging that bag from my wrist and spinning and singing in our dining room – the table was gone for some reason so I had space I didn’t usually have. The bag was flying out around me. As I twirled, I raised and lowered my arm to make it fly like one of those carnival rides. I was a pretty reserved child, so this type of movement was very unusual.
The second distinct memory comes much later – maybe around 8th grade. I was at a Lebanese social event. Now, I readily admit I have no rhythm. I can’t dance my way out of a paper bag, but at least I can move in a reasonable facsimile of dancing. A distant cousin asked me to dance. Once on the dance floor, he leaned over and began pumping his arms and sort of frenetically running in place. I remember thinking – “well, at least I don’t dance like that.”
Other than those two specific memories, all other memories of dancing as a child sort of run together – weddings, school dances, cotillions, etc.
Oh, I just thought of another specific memory. When I was in grade school, Mom enrolled me in ballet classes for a couple of years. I was a bumblebee one year for the recital. The next year, I don’t remember the costume, but my class danced to the theme from Hawaii Five-O.
When I hear music, I do actually tap my foot or bob my head, but I seriously doubt it’s in time to the music. :>

I suppose I think of Africa as a continent with stable areas and less than stable areas, but with a great diversity in cultures, terrain and climate. I love Ethiopian and Moroccan cuisine, in particular. I work about 50% of the time in San Francisco and there’s an Ethiopian restaurant that I really enjoy. There's also a Moroccan restaurant near the office, but their meal is more of a feast and you have to plan ahead to be hungry. I once participated in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. If you are interested, details can be found here - http://www.epicurean.com/articles/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony.html. There is also a wonderful video on YouTube showing the process of washing, grinding, roasting, preparing and finally serving the coffee. http://www.epicurean.com/articles/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony.html

I most definitely plan to go on safari one day. To see African wildlife up close is a dream I’ve long held. I wish I could take a month or more to explore Africa. With so much diversity, a week or two seems insignificant.
When I think of Africa, I see images of beautifully crafted baskets, women and children with baskets full of the day’s shopping or jugs of water on their heads, zebras, lions and giraffes, and, of course, Mount Kilimanjaro. I won't be climbing it, but I would like to see it one day.

Childhood

I am the oldest granddaughter on both sides of my over-protective but loving family.

For some reason, none of the pictures in the video really resonate with me. I've watched it several times and they just don't stir any of the emotions I feel when I think of my childhood or even my adult life. Maybe it's because my memories of my childhood are scattered and incomplete - impressions more than anything. Or a combination of repeated memories. I spent alot of time during the summer with my grandmother. The weeks were basically the same - Monday was Catholic Novena and taking lunch to my grandfather's sausage plant. Wednesday was also lunch at the plant. Each afternoon was spent at my aunt's house. She was bed-ridden and could do very little for herself. My grandmother would help her lie down for a nap each afternoon and then take a nap herself in one of the living room chairs. I would read.

Childhood was full of trips to Daytona Beach, Sunday breakfast with my grandparents after mass, trips to Disney (including one memorable time when we lost the car in that vast no-man's-land of a parking lot), trips with my other grandmother to Clearwater and Lake Wales.

I'm still puzzled why the pictures don't elicit any emotional response. Maybe they seem too generic to me. They remind me too much of of sit-coms telling me that the perfect friendships should be built around a coffee-shop or a neat apartment. It's also possible that I am not appreciating the photos because I've never had children and, over the years, have had very little to do with children. I'm not really conflicted by this - part was decision and part was life circumstance. It just means that pictures of my cats tend to elicit more emotional response from me. (Yes, if I weren't allergic to them, I could easily become the crazy cat lady down the street.)

I'm going to get some childhood photos from my Mom and put together my own slide show of childhood memories and post it on this blog. I hope I do as nice a job as Colleen did.

I do believe I can answer the questions about laughter and what makes me laugh pretty easily.

Mom and I can start laughing over the silliest things and be incapable of stopping for many many minutes.

Jon Stewart but not Stephen Colbert

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Life of Brian, not so much)

Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part 1

Young Frankenstein (rolling on the floor)

Comic strips

I just had another childhood memory - Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Talk about rolling on the floor.

Art as a Cultural Common Denominator

I've always believed that I can appreciate the essence of something as Art without truly appreciating the work itself. For example, I do not particularly enjoy opera. However, on an intellectual level, I can understand the underlying creativity and talent involved in the medium. I would, however, be hard-pressed to tell good opera from bad opera or a good performance from a bad one. So, in a general sense, I believe Art can be a universal language. In a specific sense, though, I think it is a more complex issue.
As I read Ellen Dissanayake's "What is Art For?", I became more and more intrigued by the question. If you accept the theory of evolution as valid and the concept of survival of the fittest as reasonable, then Dissanayake's study of Art from an evolutionary viewpoint is enlightening. While I found her arguments around the importance of Art in ritual compelling, the concept I found most interesting came late in the book.
"As ethologists we should be concerned with charting what happens when a species leaves the environment for which it was adapted for another one which it then tries to adapt to its own ends." (Dissanayake, p.169)
(Throughout her text, Dissanayake repeats that terminology used should not imply value judgement. I also am not making any value judgement when I use terms such as civilization, native, primitive, culture, etc.) The quoted statement illustrates one of the main problems people in Western cultures face when trying to understand and appreciate Art from primitive cultures. First, it is fairly easy to see how Western Art forms played a role in ritual, especially if you were raised, as I was, in a Christian tradition. However, this form of Art was generally limited to paintings, statues, symbolic objects and vocal forms. Other forms of Art used in ritual in other non-Western cultures such as movement and body art, are less well understood and not always considered Art. As Dissanayake points out, many primitive cultures do not make a distinction between Art and Ritual and Life. While I think it is intellectually possible to make the leap of understanding of this connection, I also think it is difficult to truly appreciate the perspective. I'm not sure there is a translation process that would work to gain a deep, empathic understanding of how another culture thinks - about Art or much else for that matter.
There are certainly shared experiences between cultures, birth being, in my opinion, one of the two most universal, but perhaps the least "experienced". Death, on the other hand, is universal, but it is the end and an experience that cannot be relayed to others. I am not considering near-death experiences in this definition because it is hardly universal. I believe it is the other generally universal experiences that give us the most benefit when attempting to relate or understand Art from other cultures. Actually, I will amend that. It is the experience of emotions that I believe are generally universal - joy, sadness, elation, anger to name a few. These emotions give us the capacity to appreciate art from other cultures even if we cannot fully comprehend it.

Cultural Differences

One of the initial discussion questions sent me down this path of self-inquiry. Does our cultural view-point affect our capacity to truly appreciate other culture’s art?
I have to admit, when I see cultural Art that involves pain in the creation of that Art, I cringe and wonder how necessary that is. What is it that requires pain as a rite of passage or just proof of worthiness to continue on a certain path - even just the path to adulthood? That said, a few years ago, I got a small tattoo on my ankle. And, yes, it hurt. Why did I do it? Well, that makes for an interesting self-examination and I don’t know if I’ll get to the answer, but here goes.
(As I type my hand-written notes, I’m not sure I have actually come to an answer to the self-examination question, but I do believe I develop an answer to the discussion question.)
I love the water. I’m a native Floridian and warm weather and being surrounded by water are necessary for my well-being. Many of my classmates have spoken about mountains and skiing. There seems to be some sort of odd tie to Utah in this class. J
I love the mountains, but I don’t like the cold. I love the beaches, rivers, creeks and assorted waterways of Northeast Florida. I love that on every business trip to San Francisco I have a hotel room with a view of the Bay.
I find water a source of inner peace. I have a difficult time meditating – my mind can be very unsettled – it’s like a deep pile of sticky notes each asking for attention. But I can stare at the waves breaking on the shore for hours and gain a deep feeling of inner peace. I can fall into the deepest sleep to the gentle toss of a sailboat. I can listen to the many sounds a gently flowing creek makes – taking the time to identify the location of each different gurgle and, in the process, calming my mind.
My tattoo is a water spirit. It is a constant reminder of what is important to me. Maybe other cultural forms of body art – whether gained through pain or just the tedious application of color such as Indian henna art or the time-consuming nature of ethnic hair braiding, is a reminder (a constant companion) of what is important. The pain is over. It was gone almost as soon as the tattoo artist finished. (Not that I feel the need to do it again, mind you. I’ve made my statement and rebelled against my parents - okay, I was 39 at the time. That’s probably enough. J)
So, back to the question – does our cultural view point affect our capacity to truly appreciate other culture’s art?
Yes, maybe and no.
I think there is an immediate reaction that could reject something alien to our understanding of Art. We then move to maybe – we have a choice, try to gain an understanding of the cultural differences, open our minds to new concepts or just simply move on and remain closed to accepting differences. If we choose the former, then I believe we can learn to truly appreciate another culture through their Art.
Deep down, I believe we are all of the same spirit with a need to express both our individuality and our belonging. Art is the perfect expression of both.

Global Arts

A blank computer screen is as bad as a blank piece of paper in a typewriter. 

I'm starting this blog as part of my journey towards a Masters in Liberal Studies. My first class will discuss the nature of art from a multi-dimensional perspective.

I suppose a little background on myself would be in order. I work as a software project manager for a company based on the other side of the country - so I fly to San Francisco quite regularly. I suppose that's better than the travel I did in my early career - I was routinely sent to small towns to audit small companies. Not the fastest way to see the world. I moved to Cleveland in 1989. Cleveland is a great city with wonderful people and plenty of things to do. But I'm a Florida girl and the winters were ... unacceptable. I made a career change and moved to San Francisco in '98. San Francisco is a beautiful place with wonderful restaurants,varied entertainment opportunities and plenty of diversity, but I missed being close to my family so I headed east to Winston-Salem. The nicest people in the country live there. I made good friends and enjoyed living there for several years. I moved back to northeast Florida for my job - my choice was between warm sunny Florida or icy cold Cleveland. It's nice being back home. I spend as much time as I can exploring what's left of natural Florida. Over-development is swiftly removing traces of the beautiful, quiet creeks and waterways, but I'm determined to keep finding wonderful places to kayak, camp and picnic. I'm a photography enthusiast so I take lots of pictures.