Loss, Legacy, & Love

Today the earth is being enriched by all that is Soror Dorothy Irene Height. Holding numerous positions in her lifetime, she paved the way for numerous Civil Rights Leaders. In her 98 years she lived life to the utmost. She served as an inspiration and a beacon of life.

She is an inspiration for me because of the way she navigated her identity as a feminist as well as a person of color. I aspire to be a facilitator of change. In this process people have often spoke of the 'right timing'. Soror Height put it in to perspective when she said,

"If the times aren't ripe, you have to ripen the times."

Today The Washington Post, The Chicago Defender, and USA Today are covering the legacy the 'godmother of the Civil Rights Movement' created. Although it is a sad occasion, I like to think of it as a celebration and rededication of myself to community service. As I create a piece about Soror Height, I hope I can embody all that she has meant to me.

The Loss of Soror Height left a Legacy... a Legacy of Love of community service.

Thursday Food/Environment Lecture Series

I'll probably be going to this talk. It sounds very interesting, and this lecture series is usually very well attended and very good. Let me know if you'd like to catch some dinner after class and come with me to the lecture.

Javier

http://ethicsinsociety.stanford.edu/ethics-events/events/view/726/?date=2010-04-29

Food/Environment Series: William Kennedy (Advisor, US Millennium Challenge Corporation)
April 29, 2010

"Trade and Environmental Politics in North America: The Case of Transgenic Maize and Biodiversity in Mexico"

~~~

Throughout a thirty-year career, William Kennedy has held leadership positions dealing with environmental policy and programs in Europe, North America and the developing world. He most recently served as Executive Director of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and is currently serving as an Advisor to the US Millennium Challenge Corporation, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Concordia University and Senior Associate at the McGill-UNEP Collaborating Centre on Environmental Assessment in Montreal.

When:

April 29, 2010
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

Location:

Stanford Campus
Annenberg Auditorium, 435

Wise Fool 10th Anniversary and May Day Celebration

Here's a link to the International Workers Day Celebration - giant puppet street theatre event we are hosting here in Santa Fe on May 1, 2010...

social justice street theatre, visual art, action and family gathering all rolled into one...

click here for more info http://www.wisefoolnewmexico.org/may-day.html

if you are in New York City...

	Michael Mao Dance presents IMMIGRANT PATHS, an interactive performance that celebrates immigrants' contributions to American Modern Dance, in honor of NYC Immigrant Heritage Week 2010. This vibrant and engaging program features a collaboration between Michael Mao and composer Huang Ruo on the theme of crossing borders, and Lorca Libre, five dances set to evocative songs by poet Frederico Garcia Lorca.
	Thu, April 15, 7:00PM at Chelsea Art Museum 556 West 22nd Street (corner of 11th Ave) Subway: C, E to 23rd St. Mon, April 19, 5:00PM at City Center Studio 5 130 West 56th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave) Subway: F, N, Q, R to 57th St.
	Company: Efemena Alibo, Hugues Asdrubal, Antonio Pio Fini, Osamu Inoue, Daniel McArthur, Juan Michael Porter II, Manuel Rojas, Katlyn Waldo, Nao Yamada, Stacy Yoshioka.
	Free Admission; No Reservations Required www.michaelmaodance.org

Peters Map

In 1973, Arno Peters, a German filmmaker and journalist, called a press conference to denounce the widely accepted map of the world known as the “Mercator Map” (above). Peters’ position was that the Mercator Projection—a cylindrical projection first developed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator—was not only inaccurate, but downright racist. Peters pointed out that the Mercator map has a distortion in the northern hemisphere, making North American and Eurasian countries appear much larger than they actually are. For example, Greenland and Africa are shown as roughly the same size, although in reality Africa is about fourteen times larger. In contrast, the regions along the equator—Africa, India, and South America, to name a few—appear smaller, especially when seen next to the distorted northern half of the map. It was Peters’ belief that this error led many in the developed world to ignore the struggles of the larger, poorer nations near the equator.

 

Of course Peters had a suggestion on how to fix this problem—his own map. The Peters Projection map, which claimed to show the world in a more accurate, equal-area fashion.

 

Because Peters’ map showed the size of developing nations more accurately, charitable organizations that worked in those regions quickly gave him their endorsement. Eventually his map became so well received that some were calling for an all-out ban on the Mercator map, believing it to be an outmoded symbol of colonialism.

 

The thing is, cartographers agreed that the Mercator map was outdated, inaccurate, and wasn’t the best way to represent the world’s landmasses. They’d been calling for the use of a new projection since the 1940s.

 

in response to Arizona:

"BREAKING NEWS: The National Congress of American Indians has announced the deportation of all Non-Indigenous peoples effective at midnight standard Indian Time. If you cannot provide papers to prove your ancestry before 1492 you will be fined and all your assets seized without compensation."

- Submitted by Anemone Mars of the Narragansett Nation of Rhode Island aka the Front Lines from approx around 1600...

Anyone else have any commentary about Arizona's recent plan for State sanctioned racial profiling?

Post Apocalyptic Pastoral Poem by Stegner Fellow Jennifer Foerster

Jennifer Elise Foerster will be a guest speaker at our class this Thursday April 29 . Here is an excerpt from Magdalena's Fire, titled California

California 

 

 

I have been to the crater.

There were miles of chrysanthemums.

Palm trees swayed to the hum of the gas pumps.

Poppies lit up the hills and were eating the oak.

I gathered the acorns, dreamed in the ashes.

The white flock lifted from the chaparral

like a tattered wedding dress.

Planets were wheeling in the fault lines.

Pearls gathered at the coastline.

I was traveling the shore in a wooden boat

re-stringing the continent’s necklace.

Dragging a rack of whale ribs,

I carried the relics in my mouth,

met a woman named California,

could not pull her voice out.

I went to the arcade of angels,

offered my bucket of shells –

in exchange I was given a map of hell.

I hopped its dark barges,

dreamed beneath the fireworks.

There was a carousal on the beach and I

galloped the black stallion, offered my map

to the roller-skating cashier. In exchange

she gave me a pterodactyl’s tear.

I strung it on a thread,

wore it around my neck,

then rode the Daly City train

where I sat beside a geologist.

He gave me directions

to the sleeping volcano.

The clouds were oysters, opening

and closing. I trapped the blue pearl

and offered it to a fisherman.

In exchange he gave me

a dragon-scale kite.

I dozed beneath its shadow,

drank horchata at the cantina,

tangoed with a sailor

beneath the bone dry moon

then rented a motel room

between two highways. From there,

I could see the hills burn, the sky

shatter. I pushed a rickshaw of fossils

through deepening mud. My dreams

were the treasures of a sinking boat

as I awoke to the black horse

gnawing hot gravel, the maps

burnt to ashes in my mouth.

Week One

We quickly found that project participants didnt necessarily feel included by the original 1800's terminology of Race ( still referenced in as 'definition' in some source books)  - as in MONGOLOID, CAUCASOID and NEGROID, nor the terminology offered  in the current census 

( you can check out the census at http://www.prb.org/Articles/2009/questionnaire.asp Or, a website that offers another alternative:  http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html  . Suggestions for other viewpoints? Please add ! )

We explored these and other labels in a 'racial' version of the game TWISTER. 

Using OF BODIES OF ELEMENTS cardinal themes as a starting point, we explored 'Origin stories' at the Stone River installation by Andy Goldsworthy which was conceived as a tribute to the Ohlone Nation - the original inhabitants of the area.  

This image was one of three, offered by Jazmin Holmes, to illustrate her origins. Thank you Jaz !

Studio Showing, April 2, 2010

In our first week, IDA graciously hosted DANCING EARTH for a studio showing. DANCING EARTH presented a small cast version of their new "OF BODIES OF ELEMENTS" with audience Q+A afterwards.

Here is an excerpt of a review of the showing, by Professor Jacqueline Shea Murphy of UC Riverside, quoting audience responses ( Thank you Jacquie!)  : 

   " ...brought out heartfelt response from Native audience members. "You guys are busting out some moves for our Native community.  It's revolutionary," said Gina Pacaldo, herself a longtime dancer and performer, after the Stanford showing. "Our people have been colonized in many many ways, and we still are," she said. "We are all at risk, and when I see you, I see that your hearts are strong.  Really, really strong - whoa." ("Us Grandmas, we still enjoy this," Pacaldo teased, noting the dancers' "tight, tight abs.") "We like to see our youth being strong.  You are a mirror of us and we are a mirror of you.  We want you to own this, this responsibility," she added. "The examples of what you do with your movement are part of what our community needs."

      "I hope that as long as the Creator keeps you here, you all keep moving."
    

Imbedded are some images from the showing,  taken by student Waddie Crazy Horse. Thank you Waddie !

DANCING EARTH at Stanford

FUTUREFEST

APRIL 17 2010
Invitation to the FutureFest at Stanford University, featuring booths on Food, Energy, Resources and Water, the Sustainable Fashion Show, speech by Van Jones former Green Job Advisor to the Obama Administration, and music by De La Soul!

Weblink below:
http://futurefest.stanford.edu/

JAVIER's POST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_MXP98YRuA

Here's the youtube video that I found which presents a lot of information about the Green Belt Movement. The talk is given by the founder of this movement who is also the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It's pretty incredible. The parts that I thought we could use for the class were between 6:10 "How do you solve the problems..." and about 10:10 "When they see a tree they see timber" - Javier

* Note from Rulan : This was the material that inspired the "Tree" improvisation we did last Thursday in the Papua New Guinea Sculpture Garden

My favorite quote from her speech " What we need to do is to rehabilitate this environment - and immediately I thought of a tree"

Welcome to our world!

Greetings and welcome to the DANCE OF RACE AND ENVIRONMENT !

This initiative begins with movement explorations by groups of Stanford students ( many of whom do not have extensive dance focus but are fearless in trying unfamiliar ways of learning) in order to generate creative response to the project's theme. From a gymnasium to an outdoor courtyard with fountain, to a grassy field with a serpentine formation of stones, we have begun kinetic understanding of the internal and external landscapes that shape and are shaped by groups of people, in their colors of the rainbow.

We are also generating student-initiated readings and research materials, to build collaborative leadership skills. Our interactive dialogue extends beyond the course participants, to various departments, cultural consultants, and community members, so all are welcome to sign in and comment or post relevant articles, images, weblinks. We will also be posting announcements such as for upcoming related environment or cultural events in the area. This is your community of many races, your environment, and your dance - come join us !