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Palestinian Tatreez Kulu Mele in Guinea Family Stories Liberian magazine of the philadelphia folklore project ● Palestinian tatreez ● Kulu Mele in Guinea ● Family stories ● Liberian dance and drum ● Curing homesickness Volume 22:1-2 summer/fall 2009 ISSN 1075-0029 Works in progress is the magazine of the Philadelphia Folklore Project, a 22-year-old public interest folklife agency. We work with people and inside communities in the Philadelphia area to build critical folk cultural knowledge, sustain the complex folk and traditional arts of our region, and challenge practices that diminish these local grassroots arts and humanities. To learn more, please visit us: www.folkloreproject.org or call 215.726.1106. 3 From the editor philadelphia folklore project staff 4 Kulu Mele in Guinea Editor/PFP Director: Debora Kodish Program Associates: Abimbola Cole Program Assistant: Thomas Owens 6 Tatreez: Palestinian women’s Designer: IFE designs + Associates needlework in Philadelphia Printing: Garrison Printers by Nehad Khader [Printed on recycled paper] philadelphia folklore 0 1 Do these stories exist in other families? project board by Linda Goss, Yvonne DeVasty & Jeannine Osayande Leslie Esdaille Banks Linda Goss 12 Building a town with dance & drum Rechelle McJett Beatty Ife Nii-Owoo by Ruth M. Stone Mawusi Simmons Yvette Smalls Ellen Somekawa Dorothy Wilkie 14 Chhayam by Toni Shapiro-Phim we gratefully acknowledge support from: 18 Does it cure homesickness? by Germaine Ingram ● The National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation 30 PFP doings deserves great arts ● The National Endowment for the Arts - Front cover: Recovery Act Palestinian needlework ● Pennsylvania Council on the Arts artists Maisaloon Dias, Alia ● Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Sheikh-Yousef, and Nehad ● The Pennsylvania Humanities Council Khader looking at tatreez. ● The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Photo: Sarah Green, 2009 Economic Development ● The Philadelphia Cultural Fund ● The William Penn Foundation ● The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Heritage Philadelphia Program ● Artography: Arts in a Changing America, a grant and documentation program of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, funded by the Ford Foundation ● The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, through Dance Advance ● The Pew Charitable Trusts ● The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, through the Philadelphia Music Project ● The Malka and Jacob Goldfarb Foundation ● The Samuel Fels Fund ● The Douty Foundation ● The Hilles Foundation ● The Henrietta Tower Wurts Foundation ● Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation ● PNC Arts Alive ● and wonderful individual Philadelphia Folklore Project members ● We invite your support: thank you to all 2 WIP 2009 Summer/Fall f r o m t h e editor “I can look back 50 years,” pages offer powerful testimonies past, and our place in the world, says Baba Robert Crowder, to the challenges and joys of by sharing stories with one founder of the Kulu Mele such spirit work: the territory another, clearing space to hear African Dance Ensemble, of folklore. Palestinian women where spirit rises, lingers, is lost. remembering the Ghanaian artist of three generations, described Many tragedies haunt these and statesman who called the in Nehad Khader's article (and pages, contextualize these words. group into being. And more: present in her exhibition in our The horrors of occupation, “Kulu Mele constantly gallery until December 2009) war, enslavement, and racism developed and is still stitch tatreez. This Palestinian lie behind the efforts of those developing. There is value in needlework is visible affirmation speaking here. Radical hope and Saka Aquaye’s words. This is of their rightful connections to progressive visions of justice for our ancestors.While we are particular home places—villages and equity provide unspoken living, we are trying to embrace seized and destroyed in the frameworks: contexts for the the spirit of our culture.” catastrophe of 1948 and after, expressive work described here. Truth be told: Baba is now 79, the Palestinian Nakhba. We will In these contexts, these folk arts and he looks back longer than a not be dispossessed, tatreez says: of social change address breaks mere five decades. Imagine him our peoplehood, our spirit, will and ruptures and show how we a young man— not so different, not be taken. Stitching tatreez, repair them, bridge them, together. perhaps, from the student women sustain relationships with This issue of Works in Progress who says that his experience one another, and with generations goes to press in a year of many in our Culture Camp stopped of other women. Ruth Stone catastrophes. The wisdom in this homesickness. Each found in the shares Kpelle (Liberian) wisdom issue reminds us of what we practice of folk arts a path toward along the same lines: it takes hold dear, how we endure, how hope, courage, and integrity in drummers and dancers to build we collectively sustain vital and the face of inequality and loss. a town. Think of what Kpelle healthy and just communities. This is spirit work, Baba people are saying. The folk arts Taking folklore seriously, together, tells us. What does he mean? are inherently social. They enspirit, we try to embrace the spirit Considering the historic trip inspire, enliven: requiring, creating, of our culture. We stand on that the Kulu Mele dance engaging people. These arts, and Baba’s shoulders, and on the ensemble took to Guinea this their practice, bring communities shoulders of so many others. past December, the focus of the into being. Spirit dwells here. It conversation excerpted in these is built here. Toni Shapiro-Phim —Debora Kodish WIP pages, Baba tells us not to offers Cambodian examples in be distracted by the movements the chayyam ensembles who of the body or the beat of the lead celebrants in ceremonial drum. You have to be correct, processions on particular yes, but also correct inside and occasions. They are part of the in relation to so many others, “mind-altering multi-media” part of a continuum reaching experience that traditional far back and far forward. He festivals often allow, bringing directs us to feeling, motivation, people into closer relation with and intent: matters of spirit. one another and abiding Buddhist Embracing the spirit of our spirituality. Stories shared by culture requires engagement with people gathered at Linda Goss’s others, awareness of our own “In the house” workshops are parts in forwarding community reminders of the ways in which well-being in the long term. These we continue to puzzle out the 2009 Summer/Fall WIP 3 < of mouth * word A conversation with Baba Robert > Crowder, Ama Schley, Payin Schley, Tamara Thomas, Angela Watson, Dottie Wilkie, James (Ali) Wilkie and Stephanie Amma Young. Transcribed by Thomas Owens. Edited by Debora Kodish kulu mele in guinea: More than 20 years ago, Dorothy Wilkie saw blog (www.kulumele.org).travel This may be the first stories les Ballets Africains perform the danced drama time that an African dance ensemble from the Mali Sadjo here in Philadelphia. Inspired by the United States has had the opportunity to travel djembe drum and the dancing, she never forgot that to the African continent for intensive study. performance. She began to dream of how the entire Shortly after returning, Kulu Mele came to Kulu Mele African Dance and Drum Ensemble might the Folklore Project to share travel stories with travel to Guinea to learn the piece directly from a rapt audience of community members. In talking members of that famed ensemble. What a dream! about their experiences, Kulu Mele artists were Forty and fifty years ago, when they began their transported back to Guinea. Completing one anothers’ own journeys, Kulu Mele founder Baba Crowder and sentences, emotion welling up—the feeling was elders Dorothy and John Wilkie sought out their own palpable. The excerpts included in these pages and teachers, purposefully piecing together educations in Gabe’s photos give you some idea of this historic African drum, dance, culture and meaning. Visits to adventure made possible by a grant from the Pew Ghana, Guinea, Cuba and elsewhere profoundly affected Center for Arts and Heritage, through Dance them. Their travel deepened connections with Advance and the Marketing Innovation Program. homeland master artists, allowed immersion in particular cultural contexts— and expanded the terms through which new generations here in Philadelphia explore Dorothy Wilkie: As soon as we came out of expressive and cultural possibilities. They have truly customs—it was 3:00 in the morning. M'Bemba Bangoura, “passed the torch,” training hundreds of dancers and the master drummer who worked with us, taught us, drummers. This trip extended possibilities even further. and arranged our trip, had the drummers playing. In December, fourteen Kulu Mele members Ama Schley: In the parking lot. spent ten days in Conakry, Guinea, studying Dorothy Wilkie: And then, the Kulu Mele dancers with M’Bemba Bangoura, Mariama Touré, and wouldn't stop dancing. So M’Bemba said, "It's time to others. Producer Pam Hooks, photographer Gabe load up now. We gotta get the suitcases in the van, Bienczycki, and writer Clare Croft were also on you come on." I said, "Well, you're gonna have to the trip, and they documented the journey on a stop the drums, 'cause they're not gonna stop!” 4 WIP 2009 Summer/Fall kulu mele in guinea: travel stories Ama Schley: Nope. If they ate lunch, and we started right away of—you have to be a part of it. Photos: Ali Wilkie and Edward Smallwood still playing, we gonna still dance! on meeting the choreographers and And that's where it was. And the in Guinea; Kulu Mele Payin Schley: As soon as you starting our rehearsals. And then we spirit comes out, and the dancers company members get off the plane, you hear drums. changed again, and then they took dance, and the drummers drum. and Guinean teachers and friends, just before I'm like, "Is that a radio?" M'Bemba's us to a dundunba, which is a festival, Amma Young: The Kulu Mele’s departure.
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