Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2009

Every year the Smithsonian holds a folklife festival at the mall.  It focuses on three different cultures and is a great opportunity to dabble in these cultures' music and foods.  This year the featured cultures were African-American (with a focus on the oral tradition), Central & South American (with an emphasis on music), and Welsh.

For my husband and me, one of the highlights was the Colombian band pictured above, Grupo Cimarron.  In fact, we are planning on going to their concert on July 3.    Here are a few links to their YouTube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf4Ao4xHeQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsviE6VzNo0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hTsdTPNqjs

For more information about the group, see this page:  http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/cimarron.aspx

The other group we saw was a Nuyorican group, Viento de Agua.  They are now based in Puerto Rico although they began in New York.

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/viento.aspx

In this video below, you can see people dancing to the music.  This is a more realistic representation as when we heard the band we could not see them because of all the people dancing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvy7N88WZok

These dancers from Austin TX's Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance and Cultural Center are performing the plena, one of the musical styles that Viento de Agua perform in.  For more information about this style, see this link:  http://www.prfdance.org/brochure/plena.htm



Of course, there was a lot more to the festival.  This is the overall introduction to Latin American music:

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/index.aspx

My husband and I have heard the Puerto Rican group Ecos de Borinquen elsewhere, and they are outstanding!  Here is their page at the festival website, complete with videos.

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/index.aspx

The Texmaniacs are always popular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1S1UFS3Nuo



Mexico was represented as well.  Here are links to YouTube videos of Arpex, a group that will make you think of the harp very very differently!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ezEBBSle0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjpHjyras8

Another Mexican group was Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano:
http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/camperos.aspx



Los Camperos de Valles' music is also appealing:

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/las_americas/valles.aspx



As much as I enjoy the music, the folklife festival was not just about Latin American music!  In fact, this summer in EN 202, you may find the African-American oral tradition more interesting.  The man pictured below is New England storyteller Len Cabral, one of the performers we watched.


Here is a link to a video of one of his performances:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhoYeJPNC88

This link will give you an overview of how the festival portrayed the African-American oral tradition.  We spent most of our time at the storytellers' tent, but there was so much more.  I would have liked to have seen the documentary on radio or listened to WPFW's broadcast from the festival.

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/giving_voice/index.aspx


Since I began this section with Len Cabral's picture, I will talk about his performance first.  He told a number of stories, mainly about trickster figures like Anansi, Coyote, and Monkey. He also encouraged the audience to participate.   For a little information about the trickster, see this article about this type of character (or archetype) from Professor Michael Webster at Grand Valley State University:
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Tricksters.htm
Jennifer Smith's article focuses on American tricksters:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14919/african_and_native_american_trickster.html?cat=38
If you don't mind a little coarse language in the opening quote, this article by Jo Beth Brixton is useful:  http://ualr.edu/jxbriton/folk.html

However, if you would just like to focus on Anansi, a West African figure who appears in African-American and Caribbean stories, follow this link:  http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/anansi.html 
If you would like some stories about Anansi, see these links:
http://anansi-web.com/anansi.html
http://www.afro.com/children/myths/wisdom/page1.html
http://www.africa.mrdonn.org/anansi.html

For more information about Coyote the trickster, see Dr. Kathleen L. Nichols' site:
http://members.cox.net/academia/coyote.html
She also includes some stories that feature him.  Here Coyote is stealing fire.



Brer Rabbit is another trickster who appears in storytellers' tales.  Here he is confronting the tar baby. 

http://www.americanfolklore.net/brer-rabbit.html


We also listened to two DC based performers, Christylez and Holly Bass.  Here is a link to a YouTube video of Christylez performing "Mambo Sauce," an ode to a DC condiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko-SpdmThic
The sound on this video of "Wireless Signal" is better and shows that he encouraged audience participation as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5o6w6sBk4M

This video is long, but it has Christylez on his human beatbox:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiowOzPNW-M

Here is a picture of the artist simply playing his guitar.  I was looking for a picture of him playing a mandolin...oh well!



Mustn't forget about Wales!

As you can see from the map above, Wales is a part of Great Britain or the U.K..  The picture above the map shows that Wales can be a very picturesque and rural area.  Of course, some of it is quite urban or suburban.  We also learned from a member of the Centre for Alternative Technology that the Welsh have been very active in the environmental movement, keeping his organization going throughout the 1980s and 1990s to today.

Here is the Smithsonian's overview of Wales:

http://www.festival.si.edu/2009/wales/index.aspx

Although Wales is part of the UK, many people living there speak Welsh as their first language.  Here is some information about this language:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/welsh.htm

http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/welsh.php

http://www.omniglot.com/songs/welsh/index.php

We went to a performance of Welsh singers...and the first performer sang in Welsh!

This singer Cerys Matthews was not at the festival, but I think that her video will give you an idea of what a song in Welsh might sound like:

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

OK, this is the singer we heard, Gareth Bonello.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPJYD1LpkA0

Later on Gai Toms played:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNGundye6RQ

Sian James is more traditional, singing and playing the harp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfCA0aP7yQ

Wales is also known for its choral music.  Here is a link to Only Men Aloud, a choir that won the BBC's Last Choir Standing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xYIGH-pI8

I didn't get to experience either, but I was told that the Welsh storytelling and cooking demonstrations were fantastic. 

Here are links to videos of storytellers and poets.  The first is Hugh Lupton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qozzHxn8q9U

The next is David Ponkey retelling part of the Welsh epic, The Tale of Taliesan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2vyDsWqCM4

Mab Jones is a performance poet.  This video is "Wales in Pictures."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qszEbwULJ7M

Unfortunately, Gillian Clarke is not reading her own poem, but here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0zlUQEWrRE

Below is a picture of Cader Idris, the mountain she mentions in her poem.


We'll finish with some links to Dylan Thomas' poetry since we may read him at the end of our summer session.  He was famous for his readings, so I am going to look for recordings of *him* reading his poems!

The first poem is "In My Craft or Sullen Art."
http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/poems/dthomas1.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIoXV-HXobo

The next is "Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night," which we may read.
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15377

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWiE1vNSxU

"Fern Hill" is also wonderful, but it is not read by Thomas. 
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15378

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-_ah0JfhU

Indian Music

Link

The picture above is from a bhajan (a type of Indian poetry) session at a festival in Mysore, India.  Here's a little more information about this festival:  http://www.dattapeetham.com/india/festivals/ganapati2004/ganapati2004.html

The link above is to a blog entry on Indian music that goes along with the entry on poet & lyricist Mirabai that I will post soon.  However, if you're not familiar with Indian music, you will need this background information before I post the entry on Mirabai and her poems. 

An English Ph.D's 100 Years of Popular Music

  This spring, in my EN 202 class, we talked about the relationship between song lyrics and poetry...the impulse to create a canon, um, I mean a list of "Best Songs Ever," and one academic's campaign to award Bob Dylan a Nobel Prize for Literature.

Blame it on Richard Thompson & his 1000 Years of Popular Music. 

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-748-from-medieval-madrigals-to-britney-spears.html

The list below is my husband (Ph.D., Indiana University)'s pop music canon...I mean...his 16 Best Songs Ever.  As he is old enough to remember when John Lennon was alive (or who he is), his list may be different from yours.  As he is younger than Richard Thompson, his list is also different from Mr. Thompson's.

Am not sure if these are in any particular order, but he is at work right now, so I won't check.

Number 1 is Anita O'Day and Roy Eldridge's "Let Me Off Uptown"  Below are two different versions, both blurry as they are from the mid-20th century.  Anita O'Day was that era's Amy Winehouse except that she survived and thrived until the age of 87.

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQiFvTK-kNI

Here is a picture of her at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.


Next is Aretha Franklin's "Spirit in the Dark."  Hooray for YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SBJ57H4yY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UV_LH1VrMo

Below is a picture of Ms. Franklin singing a duet of this song with Ray Charles. 
The Beatles come in third with "A Day in the Life" from the Sgt. Pepper Album.

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Beatles/_/A+Day+in+the+Life


  Number four is Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child."  Like Ono no Komachi, Ms. Holiday figures in many plays.  The actor in the second picture is Dawn P. Hope who looks a bit like Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, a 1970s movie about Ms. Holiday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IYTx60s07A

http://www.last.fm/music/Billie+Holiday/_/God+Bless+the+Child



Song #5 is Bob Marley's "Redemption Song."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7pAvbjChQM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJHgMD1S0bg

Blossom Dearie follows at #6 with "A Fine Spring Morning."  Hmmm...I wonder what my husband's favorite kind of music is!!

http://www.last.fm/music/Blossom+Dearie/_/A+Fine+Spring+Morning

Ella Fitzgerald's song (#7) is "How High the Moon."  Her version of "Cottontail" is pretty awesome, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXbXD2y_5ZY
http://www.last.fm/music/Ella+Fitzgerald/_/How+High+the+Moon

http://mp3vector.com/ella-fitzgerald/cottontail/download-mp3-track151966/

We zoom into the late 1970s with song #8--Elvis Costello's "Hand in Hand."  The picture below dates from that era, too.  I've seen Costello in concert recently, and he is very jovial looking.

http://www.last.fm/music/Elvis+Costello/_/Hand+in+Hand

  Also from the 1970s...1974...to be exact is our #9 song...Joni Mitchell's "Same Situation."

http://artists.letssingit.com/joni-mitchell-lyrics-same-situation-z753j43

We zip back to the 1950s with King Pleasure's "Parker's Mood for Love" at #10.

http://www.last.fm/music/King+Pleasure/_/Parker's+Mood

King Pleasure is actually one man and not a band.  However, I can't find a picture of him.

Here's "Cottontail" at #11.  This isn't Ella's version; it's by Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, a group from the late 1950s & early 1960s.  Recently, I saw Jon Hendricks in concert.  At 80+, he is still in good voice and can still fit into his WWII uniform. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3vf-XOAILw


Louis Armstrong appears at #12 with "Basin St. Blues."  YouTube never ceases to amaze me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GuDExkBmnU

  Would you believe that a very recent song has made it to #13?  OK, it's Nellie McKay's "Ding Dong."  Does she count?  Take a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXYgziSxxt8

Ms. McKay is quite charming and quirky live.

The 1980s ring in with...Paul Simon's "Graceland" at #14.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtT7Og2LBbE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXgQtL3aEmQ


Ack!  Another 1980s song at #15.  But it's okay.  It's "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" by The Talking Heads, a group that I wish that I had paid more attention to back in the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KLZCVFDQI

And , finally, from 2000 is #16..."It Doesn't Matter" with Wyclef Jean, the Rock, and Melky Sedeck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmv--UJ3eJM



Enjoy!

At last! The Final Prompts for EN 202 (Spring 2008)

[The picture above is from a 2007 production of The Country Wife, an intriguing Restoration comedy that hasn't been staged in this area for a while except (this weekend only) at American University!]

1.         Should professors continue to assign plays that are not available on film or are not being performed locally?   Why?  Why not?  Consider how planning for a performance of A Doll’s House, watching that performance, or going to Chesapeake Shakespeare’s performance of that play may have helped you understand Nora’s situation better.  Do you think that watching a performance of Mother Courage or The Love Suicides at Amijima might have helped you understand either play better?  Or should professors of literature not worry about what others choose to stage or film? After all, these professors are not professors of theater!  Feel free to discuss other plays that you’ve seen or to look at blog entries on Shintoku-Maru, Current Nobody, Southside, Gem of the Ocean, and (I hope!) Fences. 

 
2.  Discuss film as a genre of literature.  Given your definition of literature, how is film literature?  How is it NOT literature?  If you were to teach a film and literature course, which films would you include?  Why?  In this type of course, is it more important for a film to be a groundbreaking film (like Citizen Kane or Apocalypse Now) or for a film to be based on an important work of literature (like Jane Eyre, The Taming of the Shrew, or A Doll's House)?  Why?  How should you handle a film like Raise the Red Lantern or Ran that is not in English?  How would you handle a silent film like one of Charlie Chaplin’s or Oswald the Lucky Rabbit?

 

3.                  Discuss folk tales as a genre of literature.  How do stories like the Coyote Tales, Aesop’s Fables, or the tales that the Brothers Grimm collected fit into your ideas about literature?  How do they complicate your ideas?  Should our anthology have included stories about Rabbit, Raven, or Anansi the Spider?  Should our anthology have included additional stories about Coyote (“Coyote and Hen” or “Coyote’s Adventures in Idaho”) or “Godfather Death”?  How would a reworked story like Charles Perrault’s “Donkey Skin” or his “Cinderella” or Somerset Maugham’s “Appointment at Samarra” fit into your ideas about literature?  Conversely, compare one of our folk tales to an authored work like John Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes,” S.T. Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Ludwig Tieck’s “Fair-Haired Eckbert,” or the poems by Paula Gunn Allen and Leslie Marmon Silko.  How does the folk tale help you understand the authored work better?  How does the authored work help you understand the folk tale better?  Which does each type of work do better? 

4.  More of the works we’ve studied in the second half of the semester were originally written in a language other than English.  How does the presence of works NOT originally written in English (“Sarrasine,” Mother Courage, “Fair-Haired Eckbert”) or the Chinese-language film Raise the Red Lantern change your definition of world literature?  Or what about works like the Coyote Tales that were originally told in languages other than English?  Should EN 202 be a multilingual course?  (Feel free to bring in some of the works you read during the first part of the semester.)  Remember African authors Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s essays on a writer’s choice of language.  Should Joseph Conrad should have written in Polish and relied on translators for his English or French audience?  Should the Native American writers Paula Gunn Allen, Leslie Marmon Silko, Cheryl Savageau, and Gerald Vizenor try to write in their tribe’s language?  Why?  Why not?

 

5.            Complete at least one of the following statements (apologies to Samuel Johnson):

            If (poem/poet/song/musician/rapper) be not poetry/a poet, what is poetry?

AND/OR

            If (poem/poet/song/musician/rapper) be poetry/a poet, what is poetry?

 

Support your argument with quotes from your poet, musician, or rapper as well as analysis of these quotes and your definition of what poetry is and what it is not.  Consider this statement by British poet Basil Bunting:  “Compose aloud.  Poetry is sound” as well as Robert Frost’s jab at free verse, Ezra Pound’s call to “make it new,” or the older statement from Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas that the poet is “not to number the streaks of the tulip.”  Consider the extent to which music relies on a singer’s voice and the producer’s arrangement and to which rap relies on a rapper’s persona and his/her authenticity.