B-natyam, thus far..

Hellloo everyone.

I thought that being stuck inside, smack in the middle of the Indian monsoon season, was as good a time as any to blog. Bangalore, one of the biggest cities in India, where I've been taking bharatnatyam dance classes, is lucky enough to skip out on much of the heavy rains that browbeat the rest of India (or unlucky, if you consider the daily power outages-electricity here is almost completely dependent on water).

Anyway, you could say the outside weather is reflective of my current state. I'm in a rut. For the past week, my dance teacher has been sick with dengue. Dengue fever is common right now in Bangalore, spread by mosquitoes, which are also rampant during monsoon season. Half of my family here has some sort of fever right now, I myself having a fever last week.

But I digress. Thus far, bharatanatyam (Indian classical dance) has been a great experience. In Miami, my hometown, I danced bharatnatyam for nine years before I completed my arangetram--a three hour solo performance that I worked very hard for. It was probably, and still is, the biggest day of my life. In the U.S., many girls do their arangetram (the first solo stage debut), and it is seen as a graduation, or culmination of many years of hard work and dance. Here, it is almost the opposite. An arangetram is still done after seven to ten years of dance, but instead of being a graduation, it is seen as only the beginning. In my arangetram, chief guests (usually a family friend of ours and a senior member of our Indian community who has no real dance knowledge) made speeches glorifying what a great job I had done, but at the two arangetrams I went to here, the dancer was barely complimented. Instead, chief guests who were famous dancers themselves used rhetoric such as "we hope she goes on to take advantage of the the teachers she's got and become a good dancer in the future."

So the last two months have been a humbling but gratifying experience. I haven't danced for the last two years, and I thought, coming here, that my biggest obstacle would be getting physically fit enough to dance the way I used to. My dance teacher was told that I had completed my arangetram, so she definitely didn't expect someone so out of touch with the art. For the first two weeks, I sucked! I was physically out of shape, of course, but more importantly, it turns out that my teacher in Miami wasn't nearly the perfectionist that my teacher here is. My dance teacher was definitely surprised, and not in a good way. I, too, was frustrated, and a bit embarrassed. I started from the basics, or restarted, I should say.

But after two weeks of dancing and practicing every day, my dance teacher seemed to be both astonished and pleased. She says that unlike most of her students, I am good at correcting the mistakes she points out, and that she thought she could finally actually teach me something. Compliments are not cheap here, but I like that she's blunt.

Now two months have gone by................and I've learned several complicated pieces (yay!). I was all set to start some serious hardcore choreography on the history of bharatnatyam piece that I had planned, when.............I got a fever. For a week. And now my teacher/choreography genius has dengue. And there are some logistical issues.

More later on that very soon, because now I have to run. BUT I did use this week that my teacher fell sick to make a quick 3 day impromptu dash to North India, where I saw the Taj Mahal for the very first time. I was such a tourist, and I loved every moment of it. And thus I can't help but attach this picture.........




Next time, pictures of actual dance. I promise.

Tumbuna (ancestor) stories from Karkar

Hi friends!

I've been spending most of my time translating and transcribing interviews I did last summer on Karkar Island in Papua New Guinea. Here is a first example of the bizarre stories (partially directly translated and partially edited by me) that I've been working with. By the end of the summer I, if all goes as planned, will have a whole book of interviews, essays, poems, and stories. cheers, Christa

1: Story bilong (about) Grille man:

note- This story is interesting to me for three reasons. One, it is a love story that doesn't end well. Two, it was told to me as a legend, but it involves the modern conveniences of a flashlight and perfume. Three, it is about a man with grille, a common plight for young Papua New Guineans which involves chronic flaking of the skin all over the body.
---

During Lotu (church) Grille Man picks fish-scale layers of skin off his arms. During class Karkar Meri (girl) looks at all the young men singing, the ones singing with their head down, quiet, singing all belly and out, but not at Grille man. Never. After the first few blessings, Grille man sees her, bright moon eyes, mountain fire mouth, sun skin.
That night, like every other night, Karkar Meri slips away from tok story (conversation) around the cooking fire and steps by the light of a small palm torch to a clearing in the jungle. There she prays, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry.” That night, like every other night, she listens for an answer and hears nothing, only the bats giggling in the higher branches nearer the sky, molded into one black around her. That night, however, unlike every other night, Grille man has followed her. He hides behind the mango tree.
The next morning, Grille man waits outside of the Chinese store until the lock is opened by the man with the big cheeks and the straight-haired baby. He buys soap, perfume, sheet, and a torch (flashlight).
That night, Grille man hides in mango tree near where Karkar Meri prays. Soon enough, he hears the pressing of her feet and sees her light flicker off just a few feet away. After listening to her prayer, “Lord, please tell me the right man to marry,” Grille man turns on his torch beneath the sheet so that all she can see is a white light from behind the juicy tree.
He says in a thin voice, “I am angel of God and he wants you to marry the Grille man.” Grille then turns off his torch, runs back to his house, changes, and waits. Karkar Meri, sweating and still from this divine communion, finishes her prayers, thanks God, and goes to the Grille man’s house immediately to marry him.
One would imagine they live happy ever after, but instead the Grille man, trusting his wife of many years, tells her the truth. Karkar Meri leaves him. He lives alone until he is a very old man.

2: Poem about the creation myth of Karkar

The Story of Manub and Kulbob Version 1

The white one was Kulbob, the youngest.
Skin so new it squinted in the sun.
He departed for the mainland before his voice deepened

“Wanderlust!” Manub, the dark one, elder one, called it.
A sense of necessity and inspiration, Kulbob thought.
His skin predicated a lack of permanence;

Cloudlike and willowed. Kulbob careened in toothpick canoes
To Europe and Antarctica while Manub coveted their crater,
Tending to the fire of origin, the home of the mountain

Sun and soot. Snakes and secrets. The garden of Manub
Stretched all around the beginnings of earth. All lush
Like caocao and pawpaw, he grew it well. Kept it.

Lips small with thick pulpy sweet
Lemongrass and infants, old men
Telling stories in sugarcane fields

These are where the rhythms come from.
Humming of earthquakes. Home. Birthplace of races.
So much so you sing to the soil like “Father,

Mother, grandfather, son, I’ve been waiting
For you. I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve been
Hoping, brother, that you would return.”

a song snippet

Hey everyone,

I am on campus doing Econ research, so progress on this project has not been as good as I would have liked. However, I did want to post a rough recording of one song I have, for the most part, finished. I'm in the process of writing 2 other songs.

So this one is based on Helen of Troy. She's been written about countless times but it's too intriguing for me not to attempt my own version. There's a lot of focus on the battle, Achilles' drama, Hector's courage, blah blah, but I want to focus on the woman who is at the center of the storm, yet is only mentioned a handful of times in the Iliad. Some people have singularly praised her for her beauty, letting it overshadow the rest of her identity. Others have vilified her as a beautiful little fool who was the "destroyer of ships, destroyer of men, destroyer of cities." Since we know so little about her, I decided to portray her as I see her, Aphrodite's pawn in the goddess's vain desire to win the apple of discord.



here is a song snippet; i just put in rando photos to make a movie since we can't upload audio files. the piano is hard to hear even though i was pounding the keys....i have yet to figure out a better way to record than using my laptop.


swan song

a thousand ships launched yesterday
creeping over the horizon
they come to take the city
not the girl *

when he first came
i was another's but, only in name
he traced his love with spilled champagne * *
he had foam-born Love on his right
i came quietly

(chorus)
nine years
behind these walls
nine years
before the city falls
so hurry, love me, for i am yours
till they break down the doors

every dusk, the dust on the field
clings to every unclaimed shield
from above, their wailing drowns my sanity
Her vanity
in a pool of blood

chorus

three times i circled the gift
singing the names of those who curse me
both the whore and the holy one
there is no modest mercy

chorus

* I see the war as an excuse to conquer Troy, not retrieve a trophy wife. Melenaus intended to kill Helen anyway, only changing his mind at the last minute because of her beauty. In some versions she saved herself by baring her breasts. i can't help but laugh.
** happened in Robert Grave's The Greek Myths

Project Beginnings

Hello Everyone,
I have just recently returned from a month long mountaineering trip and have begun my photo project. So far I have been contacting local farmers (Central Valley- in Yolo County) and conducting farm visits. So far I have visited two farms and have three more visits lined up for the next week. During these visits I have gotten a tour of the land and talked to the farmers/ their family about various issues of sustainability, life on their farm, and different reasons for choosing this lifestyle. So far the visits have been great and the farmers have been very generous with their time and produce! After my second visit I ended up staying the rest of the day on the farm and working for some great fresh veggies. I haven't really started sorting or editing my photos but I've included a couple from my last visit.
Mila

Learning Kathak

                                       

This summer, I've embarked on the somewhat ambitious plan to learn at least the basics of the classical Indian dance form Kathak, in addition to the Scottish highland dancing I know and love.  I have had two classes now and am getting familiar with the basic Tintal or 16-beat rhythm, and the percussive foot movements that go with it.  I had a practice session recently with Vanisha Gandhi '10, who has studied Kathak, so I thought I'd post some pictures.

                                                 

                                      

                                      

- Molly

People of Cayambe

hi all,

thought to upload in case anyone might have suggestions. code: the splattered chap is an oil-man ruined by his temper; the bald girl suffers from wernicke's aphasia and eats a diet of rose petals. there are two others.

-ben

Artists of India? How about... Bhutan? Nepal?

Hey everybody! 

So I've finally, finally confirmed my travel plans for this summer.

 I won't have any work to show until early September, but at least I know now where I'll be going. I'll still be in India, too-- Calcutta and Delhi, mostly. But my mother has also managed to convince me to come to Bhutan with her (yeah, it was tough!).

So we'll be traveling there for 10 days. While we're there we'll be visiting a Thangka painting school, a workshop of royal silver smiths, and a traditional paper factory, so those should provide some good opportunities for photographing traditional craftsmen at work! I guess my subjects won't all be Indian as my project proposal stated, but I think this will be equally cool. 

After Bhutan, we'll be making a quick stop in Kathmandu. No specific plans there yet, but I'm working on it! 

Then we head down to Delhi, where we'll linger around the Bazaar at Chandni Chowk, where there are lots of small craftsmen's workshops.  Also the Dilli Haat food and crafts bazaar seems to display a lot of traditional handicrafts, and hopefully I can track down some of the people who made them by asking around with salesmen. 

That's all for now.