Baha'i culture...art, film, literature

Baha'i Center compared to Dr. Who's Tardis:

Tardis of tasty tucker


GRAEME PHILLIPS
September 15, 2009 06:04pm
Many establishments claim fresh and local but few I know of go to the extent of sourcing specialist mini herbs, vegetables and greens from a small organic backyard producer at Mt Nelson.

Taste Cafe

Baha'i Centre of Learning
1 Tasman Highway, Hobart
0417327921 or 0401606475
Open Monday to Friday 9am-4pm
Saturday 9am-3pm

THE Baha'i Centre has been described as a little like Dr Who's Tardis. The small, intimate spaces open into conference-sized rooms with soaring dome ceilings linked by landscaped courtyards to a library opening onto still more rooms. The whole complex is much larger and more intricately designed than first impressions might suggest.
The cafe itself consists of small tables with black ottomans scattered around the spacious reception area.

Source:

Tardis of tasty tucker Food & Wine - The Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania
 
Music and arts highlight of Baha'i summer schools..

Music and the arts a highlight of summer gatherings

29 September 2009
Singing was the draw at a festival of choirs in the Congo, while in Venezuela, both plastic arts and music played a key role at the annual Baha'i summer school.
In the United Kingdom, the Academy for the Arts attracted 300 people, and in the United States, renowned Baha'i singer Narges and the Unity Bluegrass Band were among the performers as the Green Lake conference celebrated its 50th year. ...

Some 16 choirs took part in the annual music festival in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
 
Kevin Locke wins Native American Music Award

Kevin Locke wins a NAMMY

October 3, 2009 - 2:49pm Kevin Locke, world-renowned Native American performer and educator, and member of the Baha'i community, has won a Native American Music Award (Nammy) in the Record of the Year category for his latest recording, Earth Gift. He was also nominated for awards in the Artist of the Year and Flutist of the Year categories.

The 11th Annual Native American Music Awards - the music industry's largest organization for Native American music initiatives and expression -. were presented at an awards ceremony on October 3 at the Seneca Niagara Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY. In 2000, Kevin won a Nammy for First Flute.
Three years in the making, Earth Gift, a breakthrough recording, produced by two-time Grammy winner Tom Wasinger, features traditional Lakota songs played on flute by Kevin and arranged in a vibrant contemporary world music setting.
Kevin's life work is sharing an understanding of the oneness of humanity through his music, dance, and storytelling and Kevin hopes this recognition will allow him a greater opportunity to share the universal message of the oneness of humanity.
As Kevin says, Earth Gift has “sounds that don’t tie things to a specific culture, tribe, or ethnicity. It takes people into an area that transcends cultural specificity; a place of universal appeal.”

Learn more on Kevin's website.

 
The Unity Bluegrass Band:

The Unity Bluegrass Band - "Getting Around Tuit" again

November 8, 2009 - 1:00am In August more than one thousand attendees celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Green Lake Baha'i Conference in Wisconsin – known for its great speakers, workshops and childrens program – with outstanding performing artists, including a reunion of the Unity Bluegrass Band.
bandstage.jpg

Playing on stage at Green Lake

The band had been popular in the Chicago area back in the 1970s and 1980s and played at Green Lake in 1977, the same year their first recording came out, "Getting Around Tuit."

One of the members of the band from 1977 to 1979, Adrian McKee, attended the Green Lake conference last year and was encouraged by a friend to try and get the band together for the 50th anniversary. McKee contacted the other band members, who by now were working in other fields -- a 3rd grade school teacher, computer technician, and a family practice physician. He got positive responses and plans started being made for the reunion at Green Lake.
Bluegrass77.jpg

Unity Bluegrass Band in 1977. From top left to right:
Doug Minard, Mark Harries, Adrian McKee,
David Neidig, David Bragman, Haydn Mohr

The audience at the conference warmly received the group and many were up and dancing. The crowd especially appreciated hearing the songs specifically written about the Baha'i Faith, for example: "He's Here" about the Founder of the Faith, Baha'u'llah, with lyrics such as "The world has been waiting for thousands of years for the Promised One to come..." and "Mountain of God" about Mt. Carmel in Haifa, Israel, where the Baha'i World Center and the Shrine of the Bab is located.
A 1977 review of the bands' "Getting Around Tuit" recording, printed in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, commented that:
"This must surely represent something of a first -- I'm not aware of this particular music ever being used to carry the specific message of a religion other than Christianity before."
​
Another possible "first" documented on the band's website is that McKee may have been the first - and perhaps the only - African American bluegrass player.

A wealth of information about the band and links to downloadable recordings of their songs are available on The Unity Bluegrass Band website, which was lovingly produced by McKee, the unofficial historian of the group.


http://www.unitybluegrass.com/music.htm



See:

http://www.unitybluegrass.com/music.htm
 
Baha'i Jacqueline Tagaban - Native American Heritage

Monday, November 23, 2009 Story last updated at 11/23/2009 - 10:18 am


Native American Heritage Month Jacqueline Tagaban

Juneau Empire

Age: 45.
Tribe, moiety: Tlingit, Eagle (KaagWaanTaan).
Residency: Douglas.

Positions: Director of the Preparing Indigenous Teachers and Administrators for Alaska's schools program at the University of Alaska Southeast, shareholder of Cook Inlet Region Inc. and Sealaska Corp.

Hobbies: Spending time with my family, sewing, hiking and supporting the efforts for the unity of mankind as a member of the Baha'i Faith Community in Juneau
.
Quote: "I'm proud to be an Alaska Native and to support our Alaska Native students at UAS. I am fortunate to work with Alaska Native students who are making a difference right now for Alaska Natives but also making plans to teach in schools and be a role model of success for students."
• The Juneau Empire will profile a different member of Juneau's Alaska Native community each day during November

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Vision of "New Garden" exibited at Queensland Gallery:

Bahá'í World News Service - Bahá'í International Community

Prestigious exhibition presents “New Garden”

2 February 2010
BRISBANE, Australia — Traditional Pacific island bark cloth stenciled with designs depicting a vision of a "New Garden" was one of the artworks commissioned for a prestigious exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery.

The sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art – APT6 – is now well into its four-month run and features works by some of the best-known artists of the Pacific region.http://news.bahai.org/story/754#
  • 754_01_01_%20IMG_0178_cropped.jpg

    Tapa artists Bale Jione and Robin White work on the intricate patterning for the bark cloth. The third artist, Leba Toki, was out of camera range here. (All… »
  • 754_02_2235.JPG

    Fijian artists Leba Toki and Bale Jione flank Robin White as the trio poses during a break from their work on the exquisite bark-cloth art commissioned for the… »
  • 754_03_Cutting%20stencils.jpg

    Cutting stencils is easier now that tapa artists use durable X-ray film as the material. In earlier days, banana leaves were used.
  • 754_04_2348.jpg

    The tapa artists recruited a specialist to sew the pieces for the border section of one of the works.
  • 754_05_2324_cropped.JPG

    Bale Jione paints the pattern onto the bark cloth using the stencils that she and her collaborators made.
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    The "New Garden" artwork is on display through early April at the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia.
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    A wedding of cultures was the theme for the design of the bark-cloth art created by three Baha'i artists.
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    This year's Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art for the first time includes pieces by artists from Iran, North Korea, Turkey, Tibet, Cambodia, and Myanmar.… »
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    In August 2009, painter Robin White was among a group of her compatriots who were invested as dames and knights of the British Empire by virtue of having received… »
Enlarge images

Prominent New Zealand artist Robin White was invited to participate, with organizers mentioning a possible collaboration with a tapa artist from Fiji. Eventually Mrs. White proposed that she work with two Fijians, Leba Toki and Bale Jione.
All three artists are Baha'is and used their vision of a future society to inspire their work.
"What we wanted to do was to present our vision of what Fiji could be – and what it will be," said Mrs. White.
In Fiji, she explained, almost all of the world's great religions are represented by a significant portion of the population – Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, and a small but growing Baha'i community
 
New music embraces diversity...

New music embraces diversity of cultures




OSLO, Norway, 7 July (BWNS) – Since his breakthrough as a composer more than 30 years ago, Lasse Thoresen has been searching for a musical language that brings the world's diverse cultures together.

Now, one of his innovative vocal works is being acclaimed for the similarities it draws between ancient and modern, as well as Scandinavian folk music and sounds more associated with the Middle East. The piece, titled Opus 42, has won a prestigious music award.

The Nordic Council Music Prize was searching for a work "in which all involved play their own part." Facing competition from 12 other composers, Professor Thoresen was delighted to win the 350,000 Denmark Kroner (US$56,000) prize.

"This strikingly beautiful piece reveals the common denominators in ancient and ultra-modern sounds, drawing our attention to the similarities between Scandinavian folk traditions and the music we might find in, say, the Middle East or India," wrote the Adjudication Committee for the Prize, which includes members from Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

"It represents a renewal not just of Nordic vocal music, but of score-based vocal music in general," the Committee said.

"There are scales very similar in Scandinavian folk music to things you can find in the East," said Professor Thoresen. "Neither of them elaborate harmony in a very developed way as was done in western classical music."

Opus 42 also incorporates the traditional overtone singing of Mongolia, in which the singer manipulates the resonances created as the air travels from the lungs to the mouth and nose.

"That takes a few years to learn," said the composer. "For singers to do that, they must have quite a new oral training. So as a part of this project, a system of training was developed to master these techniques."

"I think it is important to regard cultural differences as a resource and not as a threat," he said. "Even if you cannot escape from your own cultural conditioning, in some ways you can embrace other cultural sensibilities and reflect them in your own cultural context and produce an example of fruitful coexistences of cultural differences."

Opus 42 is a collection of four vocal pieces, titled "Sun Prayer," "Funeral Psalm," "Heavenly Father," and "Dual Doodles." The first was commissioned by the Bergen International Festival, the other three by the Osa Festival, which brings together Norwegian folk and classical musicians. The work has been performed by a Norwegian vocal ensemble, Nordic Voices, which the composer believes to be the only group in the world that can cope with the demands he places on his performers.

Receiving the Nordic Prize is already opening doors for the composer. There are new collaborations being planned with music festivals and some television work.

"Concert organisations are always very prudent in actually performing contemporary music. They think it is too narrow and the audience will flee from the hall if they play it!" said Professor Thoresen. "So it helps if the composer they are programming is recognized and has a name."

To read the full article online and view photographs, go to:
New music embraces diversity of cultures

For the Baha'i World News Service home page, go to:
Bahá'í World News Service - Bahá'í International Community
 
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