HERBIE HANCOCK TEAMS WITH UN TO BOOST CULTURE

Herbie Hancock at UNESCO

PARIS - Herbie Hancock is a musician on a mission.

The jazz legend, who was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador last July, says he wants to use his art for the good of humanity.

“In recent years I have become conscious of a different perception of myself in this world which goes beyond being a musician,” Hancock said prior to a special concert in Paris Monday night at the headquarters of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency.

“That might sound crazy. But I now see myself in terms of my potential value as a human being. In fact I’m more interested in the real value of being a musician … which is to serve humanity,” he told the audience, who had come to see him perform with musical friends Corinne Bailey Rae, Esperanza Spalding, Manu Katché and Stephen Brown.

Hancock’s projects include establishing an international day of jazz, to “promote a month of learning and the celebration of jazz in 195 countries around the world”. (UNESCO has approved this proposal, and the first International Jazz Day will be celebrated globally on April 30, with its official kick-off at UNESCO headquarters on April 27.)

The day will introduce jazz education and appreciation worldwide “as a way to encourage intercultural understanding, dialogue and respect, especially among youth”, the award-winning pianist and composer said.  

His concert in Paris celebrated the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, which was drawn up in 1972 to protect cultural and natural heritage. So far, 188 countries have ratified the agreement, and 936 properties have been inscribed on the World Heritage List. These include iconic structures such as India’s Taj Mahal, Cambodia’s Angkor temples and the United Kingdom’s Tower of London.

Esperanza Spalding performs with Hancock

But also included are national parks, archaeological sites, and historic town centres such as Camaguey in Cuba, Bruges in Belgium and Timbuktu in Mali.  The famed “pirate city” of Port Royal in Jamaica will soon be a candidate for the list as well.

Hancock has proposed that the locations where blues and jazz began be inscribed on the World Heritage List too: “from farms in the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans to Chicago to New York”. And he would like to see jazz music engraved on another UNESCO list (the Intangible Heritage List) alongside already recognized cultural contributions like French gastronomy.

UNESCO experts say that the protection and promotion of World Heritage sites can create jobs and give an economic boost to countries, and they have designated sustainable development as the theme of the anniversary celebrations taking place globally throughout 2012.

“The World Heritage sites have indeed contributed to sustainable and economic development but this is little known,” Kishore Rao, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre, told SWAN in an interview.

“People think that these are just iconic sites, but they generate jobs, they generate revenue and they promote tourism,” he added.

Despite the inclusion on the World Heritage List of a growing number of sites from less developed regions of the world and the progress made in strengthening the Convention’s policies and practices, “much remains to be done to ensure a full representation on the List of the world’s outstanding natural and cultural diversity”, UNESCO says.

Corinne Bailey Rae and Esperanza Spalding

“The most formidable challenge that the Convention will have to face over the coming years are related to global phenomena such as population explosion, diminishing financial resources and climate change,”  the organisation says. “These are responsible for a wide range of environmental and socio-economic pressures that pose a serious threat to World Heritage properties.”

For his part, Hancock said that when he recently visited some of the sites, he’d had an “eye-opening, incredibly inspiring and uplifting experience”.

“In Cambodia, I became aware not only of the beauty and the importance of World Heritage sites - it was the extent to which the establishment of this site impacted the local community, the city and the entire country by fostering tourism which has a very positive effect on the revenues of the country,”  Hancock said

He added that the places were also significant for “passing down the history of a people” and for “providing a record” of traditions that might otherwise have been lost because of wars and other calamities.

Hancock’s speech was rousing, but it was his music that hundreds of Parisian residents and UNESCO staffers had come to hear. And he didn’t disappoint. He played fresh and funky versions of his famous compositions “Cantaloupe Island” and “Watermelon Man”, cruised beautifully on “River” with Bailey Rae and accompanied Spalding on a special song she had composed for the evening.

That song, which featured Bailey Rae and Spalding doing a clapping, “patty cake” routine, drew the loudest applause of the evening. The two young women, looking like sisters on stage, showed that jazz, art and culture are alive and well, despite what Hancock called this “rapidly changing world”. - A.M.

COMIC BOOK GIVES HAITI’S VIEW OF THE QUAKE

"Tents Beyond Tents" by P. Jerome and C. Pierre

Two years after the earthquake in Haiti, journalists and cartoonists have come together to produce a comic book that gives the Haitian perspective of the devastating event and its consequences.

The first chapter in this 75-page "comics journalism project" is being published today. It focuses on daily life in Haiti and the survivors’ battle to recover from the deaths of loved ones and the destruction of livelihood and property since Jan. 12, 2010.

Launched by Cartoon Movement, an international publishing platform for editorial cartoons and comics journalism,  the venture emphasizes that the Haitian viewpoint  is important, against the backdrop of often skewed international reporting.

“There is not a lot of media attention any more in Haiti, but there are still so many problems that remain, and we thought it was very important for Haitian people to tell their own story,” said Tjeerd Royaards, a Dutch cartoonist who is a member of Cartoon Movement’s editorial team.

“We also wanted to do this project because we believe that comics journalism and using graphic images to convey a story and a message is a really powerful way to shed some light in a different manner on important issues,” he told SWAN.

In July of 2011, Royaards and U.S cartoonist Matt Bors spent a month in Haiti searching for a cartoonist and a team of journalists to produce a long-running series of non-fiction comics that would delve into the issues facing the country. The initial result is “Tents Beyond Tents”, a first chapter describing life in the tent camps that still dominate much of Port-au-Prince. Some half a million people still live in temporary shelters despite the many pledges of aid.

The story is by Pharés Jerome, a reporter for the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste, and subsequent chapters will be done by other journalists within their areas of expertise.

Cartoon Movement’s editors say that in addition to telling Haiti's story through comics, the organization is “one of the rare outlets” providing Haitian journalists access to an international audience.

“Most of the news about Haiti is through the eyes of Western journalists,” said Royaards. “It makes a difference when people tell things from their own perspective and this is what this project wants to do.”

The entire series will be drawn by Chevelin Pierre,  considered one of the most  talented comic artists working in Haiti. He says that the project is an opportunity to express his frustrations. and those of his countrymen.

Comics journalism “lends itself perfectly to the subject” of venting unhappiness with the current situation, according to Pierre.

Cartoon Movement said it will keep a spotlight on Haiti after the anniversary of the earthquake has passed, publishing multiple pieces in 2012 that will focus on such issues as Haitian politics, the role of NGO's, and "what exactly happened with all the relief money that came flooding in after the disaster". The comics will be published in English, French, and Creole.

Royaards told SWAN that the editors will try to find a publisher to produce the book in hard cover, and that all proceeds will go to the Haitian writers and artists taking part. - A.M.

For more information:  http://www.cartoonmovement.com/comic/29

And for an article (by O. Snaije) about a renewed Haitian literary festival, see: http://publishingperspectives.com/2012/01/reborn-haiti-lit-fest-promises-post-quake-reading-revival/

REMEMBERING CAPE VERDE’S BAREFOOT DIVA

We first met Cesaria Evora in June, 1997. The article below was published that same year by Inter Press Service (IPS).

Cesaria Evora © Youri Lenquette / Lusafrica

BRUSSELS - They call her the 'Barefoot Diva' because she always performs without shoes. But sitting in her dressing room before her appearance at the Palais des Beaux-Arts here, Cesaria Evora is wearing a sedate pair of black house slippers.

Everything else about her is diva-like, from the long, burgundy-coloured nails and many gold bangles, to the flowing patterned blouse. At 56, Evora is enjoying success that took a long time to come her way and she seems a little amused by all the attention she is receiving in Europe.

Evora is acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable singers from Africa and, as Bob Marley did for reggae and Jamaica, she has put the music of Cape Verde firmly on the map. Marley actually was one of her favourite artists, along with Edith Piaf, Salif Keita and Manu Dibango.

"Singers like Marley don't come along very often," Evora says, and the same thing could be said about her. She has a voice that makes people stop and listen to her songs, even if they don't understand Portuguese or Kriolu, the local Creole language.

Critics have called the voice 'powerful', 'extraordinary', 'pure' and 'gutsy'. Whatever you call it, Evora's singing has a remarkable effect on her audience. During her concert in Brussels, it made at least one grown man cry.

Evora's repertoire is based on the 'morna', Cape Verde's national music which is characterized by sad, poetic lyrics and slow guitar- accompanied melodies.

Evora's uncle, Francisco Xavier da Cruz (aka B. Leza), was a renowned morna composer and her father also wrote music. She says she doesn't write her own lyrics because she considers herself foremost an 'interpreter' of both new and traditional songs. Her voice completes the poetry of the morna.

The back cover of 'Cabo Verde' with Evora's autograph

Evora started singing in her teens at the few bars of her hometown Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente. She captivated the locals and was soon the rage on the local radio station. Working with accomplished clarinetist Luis Morais, she dreamed of making a career from singing, but hardships in her personal life and the poverty of Cape Verde got in the way and she stopped performing.

In 1988, however, when she was 47 years old, a French producer of Cape Verdean origin, Jose Da Silva, invited her to visit Paris to record an album. The album was called La Diva aux pieds nus (The Barefoot Diva), and some of the songs from it became hits in the Cape Verdean community in France. That October Evora gave her first performance in Paris before a small audience.

Two years (and two albums) later, she released Miss Perfumado, to rave reviews. For many, she was a new Billie Holliday - rare voice, hard life and a passion for alcohol and cigarettes. Within months her concerts were sell-outs and the album went on to sell more than 200,000 copies in France alone.

"It all started with Miss Perfumado," she reminisced. "To have success at this age is something I never expected but it was that album that launched things."

The title song is a haunting, melancholy ballad which was composed by her uncle. Whenever she sings it, the audience remains deathly silent until long after the final note. Then the applause breaks out.

Following the release of Miss Perfumado, Evora went on a global tour, performing in Europe, North and South America and Japan. In Brazil, famous singers such as Caetano Veloso welcomed her as one of their own. The music of Brazil has in fact influenced that of Cape Verde, which Evora laughingly refers to as ‘”little Brazil”.

"We like Brazilian music very much," she says. "There is a lot of similarity because we use the same instruments."

The front cover of 'Cabo Verde'

As success came, Evora decided to give up alcohol ("I used to warm up my voice with liquor, now it's with coffee") but she continues to smoke cigarettes. Since 1994, she has been signed to the international record company B.M.G. through Jose Da Silva's Lusafrica label, and she has released three more albums. The latest, Cabo Verde, came out this year.

"It's more in line with the traditional music of Cape Verde," she says. "The musicians are also new and I have people who are well-known in different areas also participating, such as the clarinetist James Carter."

The clarinet and saxophone do play a big part in her live shows although the music is driven by strings - the guitar, bass, and the cavaquinho (a small four-stringed instrument) - complemented by the piano. (END/1997) – Alecia McKenzie.

Cesaria Evora died on 17 December 2011 in Cape Verde. Her music lives on.

‘I WAS IN TEARS’: LUC BESSON TALKS ABOUT THE LADY

Director Luc Besson with Michelle Yeoh.
Photo Magali Bragard
 © 2011 EuropaCorp – Left Bank Pictures – France 2 Cinéma

A poignant film about Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi opened in cinemas across France today. “The Lady”, by French director Luc Besson, comes 20 years after Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize and 12 months after she was released from house arrest. She had spent most of the last 21 years in detention.

With Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh in the lead, the film is a love story as well as a true political account. It focuses on the huge personal sacrifices Suu Kyi has had to make, and especially shows the impact on her husband and her two sons.

Suu Kyi’s husband Michael Aris, played by English actor David Thewlis, was a professor at Oxford, and he supported her tirelessly in her fight against the Burmese regime. But he died of cancer without having seen her for three years because he was repeatedly refused a visa to visit her in Burma (Myanmar).

This is just one aspect of the lesser-known parts of Suu Kyi’s story that Besson has brought to light. The director (The Fifth Element, Yamakasi) sat down with SWAN’s editor Alecia McKenzie to discuss the movie, which was shot in Thailand and London. Below are excerpts from the interview.

The poster for "The Lady"

McKenzie: Why did you make this film?

Besson: When I read the script, I was in tears. I didn’t know the story so well. I knew just a little bit about her, and I was amazed to see that love can bring you so far, and can achieve so many things. We always think that the only way to achieve things is through money, or power or weapons. But actually, a 50-kilo woman by herself can confront 300,000 military people for 30 years and win, in a way. She still needs us, but she is about to win her fight. It’s pretty amazing to see that, and I just want to share that with people, to say: peaceful ways can also be good, and we should remember that.

M: What was the hardest thing for you as a filmmaker with this movie?

B: The hardest thing was to be honest and to not betray her. I have so much love and respect for her, and she’s still alive and she’s still fighting. It’s not the kind of film to show yourself as a director, showing how brilliant you are or anything like that. You really have to be humble and put yourself at the service of the story, not in front all the time. That was the biggest thing – to fight against my own ego, and be more modest, to work in her service.

M: I think that comes across in the film because the focus is really on her and her story …

B: I tried!



M: Do you think this film will contribute to democratic reforms in Burma?

B: I think that a film by itself cannot achieve anything, but working together we can. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the U.N., Hillary Clinton - there are lots of people who have been working for many years, helping her. The tools they have are laws, reports, numbers. But artists can bring in emotion. That’s what we try to contribute. Through emotion, you touch people and when people are touched, they are more aware, they want to know more, and they want to help. So that was our task - to bring a new tool to this big toolbox. We’ve been working on this for two years, but all the others, the real fighters, have been working for 30 years. I’m very proud that Amnesty International has endorsed the film because it shows that it’s a peaceful weapon but it’s one more tool.

Michelle Yeoh as Suu Kyi.
Photo Magali Bragard.
© 2011 EuropaCorp – Left Bank Pictures – France 2 Cinéma

M: Have you met Suu Kyi?

B: I met her after the film was made.

M: You were allowed into Burma?

B: Yes, I have a tourist visa. I don’t know how I got it actually because it was refused a few times. Sometimes they move in strange ways. You never know why they say yes or no.

M: You’ve said she didn’t want to be involved in the film. Tell us more about that.

B:  She does not want to be involved at all. She didn’t read the script and she hasn’t watched the film. We make it clear that it’s my responsibility and she has nothing to do with the film because we don’t want the government at any moment to use the film against her. She was and is aware of the film, but she has no involvement.

M: What was it like working with Michelle Yeoh?

B: A dream. You know when you have the pleasure of working with an actress so devoted … I mean she loves Aung San Suu Kyi, she respects her. And she knew from the beginning that this is the role of her life. She was so focused that I had almost nothing to do, just follow her, because day and night she was living through her. Even every night she was going back to the hotel with a Gandhi book or a Mandela book, and she didn’t get out of her character for almost a year. She made it easy for me.

M: And is this also the  film of your life?

B:  I think it’s a turn. It’s a different type of film, and I’m very proud of it. It’s the type of film that changes you. You can’t be close to this woman and stay the same. She’s just too powerful. I’m sure that it’s the same for people who met Gandhi or who’ve met Mandela. You see life differently after that.

David Thewlis as husband Michael Aris
 Photo Magali Bragard.
© 2011 EuropaCorp – Left Bank Pictures – France 2 Cinéma

M: Looking at your earlier films, would you say that you’re attracted by the story of outsiders, people who fight against conventions?

B: I think I’m attracted by the human story of people like Suu Kyi, when something touches me and can touch everyone. I’m not very specific on things. I try to be a simple movie-goer and when a film hits me, when I’m crying so much, or when I’m excited by it – that’s the one I want to make.

M: There have been several special screenings of “The Lady”. What response have you got from ordinary people and from people in your profession?

B: I think the film is touching for normal people, and they’ve told me so. For professionals, I think they are proud of me in a way because they’ve said it was courageous to do the film. They’ve been very kind. The third reaction has been from the press, and that’s always a little bit more difficult. Some like the film, but some think that it’s their subject and they’re confused because it’s the first time I come onto their field, and I decide to talk about her personal life and the love story, rather than about the political side. Some journalists are disappointed that I’ve talked about “heart” rather than politics. I understand that, but I have nothing to teach people about politics. Just go on the Internet, and everything is there. What I can bring is not news, but I can show that the wall of love in the story is so important. That was what I chose to do, and it disappoints some people who wanted a political film. But it is the press’ role to talk about politics, and it’s my role to talk about emotion.

(© 2011 - SWAN)  

TOP DESIGNERS MAKE DOLLS TO FUND VACCINATIONS

Designer Tilmann Grawe with his doll

Despite the global economic crisis, top fashion designers such as Giorgio Armani, Prada and Sonia Rykiel have again contributed their time to creating attention-grabbing costumes for rag dolls that will be sold to help fund a vaccination programme in war-ravaged Darfur, Sudan.

Now in its ninth year, the "Frimousses de Créateurs" (Designers’ Dolls) venture is coordinated by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In 2010, sales of the dolls raised a record 286,500 euros, which enabled UNICEF to vaccinate more than two million children in Darfur against measles.

"I’ve been taking part in this project for five years, and it’s very important to me,” Paris-based designer Tilmann Grawe told SWAN, as he showed off a look-alike orange doll. “The money raised helps to save children’s lives and that’s the reason we’re all involved.”

The designers’ dolls went on public display at the Petit Palais fine arts museum in Paris, France, on Nov. 28, attracting hundreds of viewers on opening night. Grawe, whose designs have been worn by American singer Lady Gaga and Indian actress Aishwarya Rai, turned up covered in glitter to talk about his doll and to pose with it for fashion-lovers and UNICEF-supporters. Other designers also wore eye-catching costumes to complement those of their “frimousses”.

A doll by Prada

The dolls will be exhibited free to the public until Dec. 4, after which a certain number will be sold via online auction until Dec. 12.  Auction house Drouot Montaigne will conduct the final sale on Dec. 13 in Paris.

The most expensive doll sold so far was designed by Chanel and raised 23,000 euros, UNICEF said. That sum contributed to the total of 227,000 euros raised in 2008 - which itself was a nearly six-fold increase from 2003, when the project began.

For the first time this year, the “Frimousses” exhibition also includes rag dolls made by schoolchildren. To help fund vaccinations in other countries besides Sudan, thousands of schoolchildren in France take part in a similar but separate venture. They make rag dolls which adults then buy for 20 euros each.

Last year, these dolls raised 64,000 euros, and the amount is expected to be higher in 2011. The sum is enough for a full cycle of childhood vaccinations, says Valerie Metzger, a UNICEF projects coordinator who started the scheme in France, following a similar venture in Italy known as "Pigotta". 



Metzger (right) and intern Nathalie

Metzger says UNICEF provides the body of the doll, and the children bring in bits of fabric, old clothing and other material to create costumes.

Before they start, they are told about children's rights and some of the problems still facing children worldwide. They learn, for instance, that 50 million children are not registered at birth and that some two million die each year because of lack of essential vaccinations.   (Text and photos: A.M.)

NIGERIAN SOPRANO SOARS IN EUROPE

Nigerian soprano Omo Bello on stage

“Someone like her comes along every 20 years.”

That’s what one of Omo Bello’s singing teachers said about her when she first heard Bello perform. Since then, the young soprano from Nigeria has been winning prizes and enthralling audiences in Italy, France and other countries.

Bello, 27 years old and based in Paris, won first place in the prestigious Anselmo Colzani international singing competition in Budrio, Italy, earlier this year, in addition to three other prizes in Europe (most importantly first prize in the 2010 Luciano Pavarotti Giovani competition in Vercelli).

Her latest award is the 2011 Cziffra Foundation prize for exceptionally talented young musicians. She will be giving recitals in several French cities throughout November, and recording her first album in 2012.

Bello stands out not only for the purity of her voice but for the “naturalness” of her stage presence. She makes audiences believe in the joy, sadness, confusion or whatever other emotion her character is portraying, because she herself seems to believe in it. Her facial expressions and hand movements are those of a good actress who makes acting look easy.

During a recent concert at the ornate Châtelet theatre in Paris, the audience seemed delighted as she sang the aria ‘Glitter and be Gay’ from Leonard Bernstein’s opera Candide.

“You always have to go the extra mile to make it seem effortless,” she told SWAN in an interview at a noisy café in northern Paris a few days later. “On stage, you have to let go of yourself, but there’s still a part of you in every role you play.”

Bello was studying cell biology and genetics at the University of Lagos when she was invited to sing at a concert organized by the French cultural centre there. When he heard her, the cultural attaché to Nigeria, Jean-Yves Gillon, felt that her talent had to be nurtured, and he quickly arranged for a scholarship in France, although he later admitted he had little knowledge of opera. Like many others who have heard Bello sing, however, Gillon said he was touched, moved to tears.

“I had to come to France to do auditions to find out if there was a talent, and if I could continue with this,” Bello recalls.   

Bello stands in front of a hip-hop poster in Paris

She didn’t have the “level or technique” to get into the Conservatoire National de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP) straight away, but there was no doubt that the voice was there, according to singing teacher Peggy Bouveret.

“When I first met her I could see that there was promise but I wasn’t at all sure she could do it, but she was very brave and she had determination,” Bouveret said. “She did have the beginnings of a voice although it was far away from what she needed for a career. Still, she had promise in every way.”

 

With this knowledge, Bello decided to embark on her new adventure, but first she wanted to complete her bachelor’s degree in cell biology and genetics. At the end, it all became a bit of a race - she graduated from the University of Lagos on a Friday and travelled to France the following Sunday, back in 2005. 

She began her opera classes at the regional conservatory in Toulouse, and after two years moved to Paris to the Conservatoire National. Her scholarship covered work with singing teacher Bouveret, who is known for developing talent. Bouveret stressed that Bello should try to maintain her natural approach to singing. 

With courses in piano, vocal technique, theatre, dramatic arts and languages (French, Italian, German and Russian) under her belt, Bello graduated from the conservatory last June, giving a 50-minute recital of music by Handel, Schumann, Mozart and other composers as part of the ceremony.

“These past four years have been so intense,” she told SWAN. “Opera is an art form that teaches you immense discipline.”

Asked how she feels when she sings, Bello responded: “Singing does a lot for me. I’m not necessarily a very extroverted person, but singing gives me pleasure, and I want to take pleasure in what I’m doing. God made the human voice into the most complete instrument, and it’s very gratifying.”

Her audiences tend to feel the same way. Paris resident Clarisse Deletre who knows Bello both personally and as a singer says the Nigerian touches people because of her belief in what she does and because of her great will to work.



Bello

Deletre’s daughter Cecile, an ethno-musicologist, had met Bello in Nigeria, and the family welcomed Bello into their home when the singer arrived in Paris.

“Omo quickly learned French, which she writes almost faultlessly now, and she got used to the cold, the customs and accepted the difficult life of Parisians who don’t have a lot of money,” Deletre told SWAN.



“She has effectively become a part of the family. We all believed in her from the beginning,” she added.

Deletre’s 85-year-old mother told Bello that one day she would be singing at the MET in New York and that the family would all make the trip to applaud her.



That day hasn’t arrived yet, but Bello did audition for the MET in April. She was told that she needed to do more work, which she says she looks forward to completing.

“The growing process never stops,” Bello says. “The day you stop growing is the day you start sinking.”

Meanwhile, she is “giving back” to Nigeria, where she grew up in a family that listened to classics such as The Sound of Music and to African-American opera star Leontyne Price.

Bello has returned to sing in Abuja each year since 2007 and is lending her support to the construction of a conservatory of music and an opera house. Her parents –an architect and a lawyer – were initially skeptical of her career choice, but they now believe she did the right thing in coming to Europe.

“I was destined for the sciences, and my father (the architect) couldn’t understand this singing business,” Bello laughs. “But you have to do what makes you happy, don’t you?” – A.M.

Follow SWAN on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale

ASIAN-CANADIAN WRITERS AND RACE

Transnational Poetics: Asian Canadian Women’s Fiction of the 1990s is a scholarly work that aims to determine to what extent the new generation of Asian-Canadian women writers who started publishing in the 1990s feels at ease or at odds with a cultural climate that markets their writing as being exotic. It also examines in what ways they relate to the poetics and politics of their predecessors.

The authors of Transnational Poetics (professors P. Cuder-Domínguez, B. Martín-Lucas, and S. Villegas-López) discuss the work of writers such as Yasmin Ladha, Rachna Mara, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Lydia Kwa, Hiromi Goto and Kerri Sakamoto. They also pay attention to these writers’ contributions to new developments in the field of race and writing in Canada, and to how they challenge dominant conceptions of identity, not only in terms of race and gender, but also of sexual orientation.

Racial identity has in fact been the subject of much scrutiny in Canada in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly in connection with the definition of a national identity. During the 1960s and 1970s Canada severed its last colonial ties with Britain while it engaged in the construction of a coherent national image (flag, anthem, and related symbols) that was distinctive from both their old imperial centre (the United Kingdom) and their powerful neighbour (the United States).

There emerged then the notion of the “Canadian mosaic,” a symbol of inter-ethnic and inter-racial cooperation that gave the lie to the “American melting-pot” by reconciling differences instead of fostering assimilation into a normative white European identity.

 Although the idea of the ‘two founding nations’ has proved extremely resilient and quite impossible to debunk, the mosaic framework was also open to other races and ethnic groups during the 1980s. In that decade, the writing of “visible minorities” in Canada attracted major media and academic attention for the first time. They became central to the project of displaying the pluralist makeup of Canadian society and culture as articulated in the Multiculturalism Act of 1988 and promoted from most cultural institutions.

By the late 1980s, however, critics and writers both expressed reservations about an official policy of multiculturalism that unproblematically celebrated “difference” without undertaking to analyze the unequal access to power that these social groups had. Out of these debates there rises throughout the 1990s a new conceptualization of racial identity that starts by re-examining the very terms used for it, like “visible minority” or “woman of colour.” 

The volume is published by Tsar Publications.: http://www.tsarbooks.com/. - PC-D 

U.S. CUTS TO UNESCO FUNDING COULD HURT ARTS

PARIS - Certain international education and arts programmes will be hurt by the United States' decision to cut funding for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, following  a vote by UNESCO's member states to grant Palestine full membership in the organisation.

Announcing the vote at UNESCO. Photo: A. McKenzie

"The withholding of U.S. dues and other financial contributions – required by U.S. law – will weaken UNESCO’s effectiveness and undermine its ability to build free and open societies,” the agency’s director-general Irina Bokova stated this week.

“U.S. funding helps UNESCO to develop and sustain free and competitive media in Iraq, Tunisia and Egypt,” she said. “In Afghanistan, U.S. support is helping UNESCO to teach thousands of police officers to read and write.”

Bokova said that UNESCO literacy programmes in other areas of conflict “give people the critical thinking skills and confidence they need to fight violent extremism”.  She added that UNESCO was also training journalists to cover elections objectively “to sustain the democratic spirit of the Arab Spring”.

The agency has made the safeguarding of cultural heritage a priority in countries such as Egypt and Libya. It also supports a range of international artistic and cultural initiatives, such as World Theatre Day.

See full story at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105759

MAJOR EXPO OF MAORI ART, CULTURE OPENS IN PARIS

Wood panel by Maori sculptor Tene Waitere

Objects at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris tend to provoke unease and even anger in some visitors. Critics say that the museum, which focuses on the arts of Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas, has a colonialist, outmoded approach to regions outside Europe.

But a new exhibition could change the way the museum is perceived, at least for now. “Maori: Their Treasures Have a Soul” is an impressive show of art and culture organized by the Maori people themselves, and one can feel the difference.

Opened this week, the exhibition presents ancestral treasures along with contemporary artwork, linking the past and the present. Materials used include wood, stone and shell, reflecting the Maori communion with nature, according to Matiu Rei, a Maori “tribal leader” – as he calls himself.

“Ancestry is important to us,” Rei told SWAN. “What canoe our ancestors arrived in is something we want to know about. We still retain that kind of organization, and we genuinely regard ourselves as tribal people with our own ideas of self-determination. That’s what this exhibition is about.”

Rei performed an incantation ceremony before the show opened, blessing the artwork, as the Maori believe that objects “can have a spirit”, he said.

The show, composing 250 pieces, has traveled from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tangarewa, where it was first presented earlier this year. Rei said that the exhibition “looked better” in Paris because of the large and attractive space the Quai Branly Museum could devote to it. This space means that visitors can take their time to wander among the exhibits, appreciating the various themes being portrayed.

One learns about the Maori skill at sailing, with depictions of their canoes and paddles; traditional Maori music, with musical instruments on display; contemporary Maori art, with works from artists such as Reuben Paterson and Brett Graham. 



Maori oars

Other objects include stunning jade pendants, tall wooden sculptures of ancestral gods, photographs depicting ornate tattoos, and historical documents. They all show Maori culture as seen by Maori, “free from Western views and biases,” the museum says.

The main thread throughout the exhibition is the resolve for empowerment, leadership and identity in New Zealand, after centuries of “dispossession and colonial conflicts”, said Stephane Martin, president of the Quai Branly Museum.

“The approach of this exhibition is different from one done by ethnographers or collectors,” Martin told SWAN. “This show has been done by Maori people in the way they want to be seen or perceived.

“It’s a very large vision of the Maori world, from its origins to the present situation, following a chronological line,” he added.

Asked about the criticisms of the museum’s general focus, Martin said that the Quai Branly wanted to be seen as a “cultural centre” rather than as a “real traditional ethnographic” museum.

“We give voices to very, very different points of view,” he said. “When people came to the opening of the museum and said ‘I don’t like this museum’, what they disliked were very small parts of the museum.”

He said that the temporary exhibitions were distinct from the permanent objects in the museum’s so-called Espace de Référence (Reference Space), which houses traditional pieces from regions outside of Europe. The presentation of these pieces as “primitive arts” is the reason many people are uncomfortable with the museum, which was created in 2006. 

But visitors at the opening of “Maori: Their Treasures Have a Soul” said that they welcomed an exhibition organized by the community that was being portrayed.

“This is a good approach,” said Djamal Mohamed, as he viewed a sleek, imposing canoe on display. “I’m learning a lot.” - A.M.

The exhibition runs until 22 January 2012. Side events include dance workshops, storytelling shows, and the projection of films such as “Whale Rider” and “Once Were Warriors”.