Subscribe to The New Moon, ACTA's Monthly E-Newsletter.

ACTA Announces Traditional Arts Development Awards

ACTA awarded contracts to nine California traditional artists and organizations this month through its Traditional Arts Development Program. Artists and organizations will recieve contracts of $1,500 each to support consultancies, mentorships, and travel opportunities that foster a new level of growth artistically or organizationally.

The California Arts Council, the San Francisco Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts provide funding support for this program.

The recipients for the fourth round of the program include:

Kwashi Amevuvor (Los Angeles), a master drummer from Ghana, West Africa, will work with consultant Janet Planet, who will assist him with marketing and web design to develop professional promotional materials to publicize the work of the artist and the traditional cultural arts of Ghana. In addition, Ms. Planet’s consultancy will support Mr. Amevuvor’s efforts in organizing a cultural study tour of Ghana.

Door Dog Music Productions (San Francisco) will work with independent arts consultant Eleanor San San Wong to develop a three-year organizational strategic plan focusing on infrastructure, programming, fundraising, and visibility. Door Dog Music Productions is a non-profit organization, which supports the diversity of cultures of the world through music. Door Dog is the producer of the annual San Francisco World Music Festival.

Ektaa Center (Irvine), an organization dedicated to creating an understanding of the traditional arts of India, will contract videographer Serg Swiderski, owner of Perfect Video Production Services, to document the proceedings of Dance Conversations, a symposium and festival of Indian dance to be held in May 2005. The festival will bring international and local dancers, performers, choreographers and academics together to discuss the status of Indian dance in California.

The Eszterlánc Hungarian Folk Ensemble (Foster City) will travel to Southern California to perform for an audience of over two thousand at the annual Magyar Sajtónap (Hungarian Press Day), hosted by the newspaper California Hungarians. At this event Eszterlanc dancers will have the opportunity to perform with members of the Karpatok Folk Ensemble of Southern California, which is led by Istvan Szabo.

Gen Taiko (San Francisco), an organization dedicated to promoting, preserving and presenting Japanese traditional arts including taiko (traditional Japanese drumming), traditional folk dance, and folk song forms, will pair its artistic director, Melody Takata, with National Heritage Fellow Madame Fujima Kansuma to learn the Nihon Buyo (Japanese classical) dance called Kojo No Tsuki (Moonlit Castle Ruins). Ms. Takata will teach the dance to four of her students and they will perform it at Gen Taiko’s 10th Anniversary Concert in November 2005.

Khaely Nguewel (Los Angeles), a Sengalese dance and music company will hire consultant Joyce Guy to assist artistic director Aziz Faye in producing a two-day traditional Senegalese dance and drum conference at the Dance Arts Academy in Los Angeles in April 2005. Mr. Faye will invite two master dancers, Marie Basse Wiles from Brooklyn, New York and Tenefi Dambakate from Newark, New Jersey to help him instruct the Los Angeles African dance community in the dance techniques of the diverse peoples and regions of Senegal. Both Wiles and Dambakate were born in Dakar, Senegal.

The Mexican Cultural Institute (Los Angeles) will work with Miriam Lopez Ambrosio, a master Oaxacan folkloric dancer, to create an educational component to their annual La Guelaguetza celebration on Olvera Street in Los Angeles. La Guelaguetza is an annual Oaxacan festival celebrated through traditional dance, dress, music and food. At this year’s festival Ms. Ambrosio will discuss the background of the dances and regional costumes, and invite the public to learn traditional dance steps in an effort to foster a deeper understanding of Oaxacan cultural traditions.

The Riverside Municipal Museum (Riverside) will initiate a new educational program entitled “Preserving Traditions,” a series of workshops, which will promote cultural awareness of Southern California’s Native American arts. Working with Lorene Sisquoc, (Mountain Cahuilla/Fort Sill Apache) the museum will offer an introduction to Southern California basketry, a lecture on Native American toys and games, a discussion of Native American plant uses, and a workshop for educators on interpreting Native American culture in the classroom.

Wang Wei (San Francisco), a master of traditional Chinese percussion, will work with Michael Santoro, director of Door Dog Music Productions, to complete the production of an educational CD. The CD will introduce percussion instruments from different regions of China, educating listeners on the instruments’ origin and rhythm patterns with sample pieces recorded by Wang Wei. This educational CD presenting Chinese percussion instruments is the first of its kind, and will advance awareness and appreciation of Chinese percussion.

top

Students Celebrate the Persian New Year Through Traditional Percussion Music

Artistic Mentor Houman Pourmehdi with the tonbak ensemble

Artistic Mentor Houman Pourmehdi (left) with the tonbak ensemble,
made up of Albany Persian School students

Photo by Mari Pongkhamsing

Article by Mari Pongkhamsing, ACTA

Albany Persian School students performed for their families and friends last month in celebration of Nowruz, or Persian New Year. The students performed skits, traditional and contemporary dances, and Persian percussion music. The Persian American Cultural Center gave the young students at Albany Persian School the opportunity to study percussion for six months with master artist Houman Pourmehdi of Los Angeles in a free program supported by ACTA’s Folk and Traditional Arts Mentorship Initiative grant funded by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund. The students have been attending percussion music classes, taught by Mr. Pourmehdi, every other Saturday.

Leaders of the Persian American Cultural Center decided to introduce students to Persian music through the study of percussion because they felt that rhythm is an essential part of Persian culture. Rhythm is not only a component of Persian music, but also poetry, dance, and language, so teaching percussion would allow them to introduce fundamentals of Persian culture to the next generation. They brought Houman Pourmehdi to the Bay Area from Los Angeles to instruct the students because he is a percussion artist of the highest caliber, as well as a role model who could teach traditional values. Mr. Pourmehdi is a master percussionist who began to play the tonbak, a gift from his grandfather, at the age of three. In addition to the tonbak he plays the kurekeh, daf, and ney, and is a founding member of the Los Angeles based Liän Ensemble.

Students performed in percussion ensembles to share what they had learned through their apprenticeship with Mr. Pourmehdi. Children under twelve demonstrated their knowledge of basic Persian rhythms using bells, sticks, and children’s drums, while teenage youth performed percussion pieces on the tonbak, a goblet shaped drum. The older students performed more complicated compositions, displaying some of the elaborate fingering techniques demanded by the tonbak. After working with the tonbak since October, the students will now begin learning to play the daf, a frame drum with a row of small circular metal hoops fastened to the inside of its rim.

Other highlights of the Nowruz celebration included dances and songs by children playing Haji Firouz, the traditional herald of the New Year season who spreads good cheer for the coming year, dressed in a bright red costume. Another skit demonstrated haft seen, the New Year’s tradition of placing seven (haft) items on a table that begin with the Persian letter, Seen. The Nowruz performances brought the community together to celebrate Persian traditional arts and many parents cheered with pride as they watched their children participate in these cherished cultural traditions.

top

ACTA Organizes Mariachi Workshops for Radio Bilingüe’s ¡Viva el Mariachi! Festival

An instructor from Mariachi Mexico de Pepe Villa demonstrates for his violin students

An instructor from Mariachi México de Pépé Villa
demonstrates for his violin students

Photo by Bob Higgins

Article by Missy Jessen, ACTA

For a third year, ACTA organized Radio Bilingüe’s ¡Viva el Mariachi! Festival Workshops, in an effort to provide training by master teachers to mariachi music students from across the state and beyond. Radio Bilingüe, which produced the first mariachi festival in California 23 years ago, has supported instructional workshops for fifteen years. Nati Cano, the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow, has provided the artistic leadership and institutionalized the high teaching standards of these workshops since its inception.

This year, a record 364 students filled the all-day event to capacity on Saturday, March 12, 2005 at California State University, Fresno. Classes in the five mariachi instruments of violin, trumpet, guitar, vihuela and guitarrón were offered in three levels - beginning, intermediate, and advanced, in addition to voice instruction. Nati Cano and his Mariachi Los Camperos from Los Angeles taught advanced students in a master class ensemble setting. Mariachi México de Pépé Villa from Mexico City offered intermediate musical instruction, while the beginning level and voice students were instructed by Juan Morales with Mariachi Tenochtitlán, a Mariachi ensemble from Fresno. The National Endowment for the Arts provided a grant to support the workshops.

In addition to learning new music, the students were also schooled in the history of mariachi music. Ethnomusicologist and mariachi musician, Jonathan Clark, gave a richly illustrated lecture with musical samples and archival images on the relationship between two of the festival headlining groups this year, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán and Mariachi México de Pépé Villa. Clark resides in San Jose, California and has been researching and collecting mariachi music and draws from his huge personal archive of materials in preparing unique lectures for the workshops each year.

After lunch, students were treated to a surprise visit by Maestro Manuel Esperón. Maestro Esperón composed a number of songs that for half a century have been among the most popular in the mariachi repertoire, such as “Ay, Jalisco No Te Rajes” and “Amorcito Corazón.” A special tribute and award to Esperón was made at the ¡Viva el Mariachi Festival! on Sunday.

After an intense day of learning new music, participants were invited to an open-mic jam session at the Fashion Fair Mall. The “Mariachi Jam” provides a special venue for organized student groups to perform for each other and their families, mall shoppers, and a worldwide audience on Radio Bilingüe’s live broadcast to its international network of stations. One of many highlights was the solo performance by Tim Mireles, the mariachi harp apprentice to Juan Morales in ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program. Mireles, who has played mariachi guitar for over a decade, is finally fulfilling his dream to learn harp, which was the instrument his namesake, his Michoacan-born grandfather played. The performance at the jam was his first solo performance on harp.

On Sunday, during the five-hour sold-out Selland Arena festival, the workshop participants performed with their instructors in three segments during the concert. The audience members cheered for the mariachi students, of whom nearly three-quarters were ages 20 and under, and in their various levels of accomplishment and commitment, provide a testament to the vibrant future of Mariachi music in California.

top

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage Launches New Website Featuring Digital Music Downloads From Around the World

The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage recently launched its new web site, Smithsonian Global Sound. Smithsonian Global Sound offers digital downloads of music and sound from around the world. The site includes educational content and downloads are accompanied by extensive liner notes. The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage hopes to encourage local musicians and traditions around the world through international recognition, the payment of royalties, and support for regional archives.

The site offers almost the entire Smithsonian Folkways Recordings collections and the holdings of two regional archives: the International Library of African Music (ILAM), in Grahamstown, South Africa, and the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), in New Delhi, India. The site can be searched by country, instrument, or keywords to find music from around the world. Downloads are $0.99 per song.

top

IN REMEMBRANCE

Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero Jr.
1916 - 2005

Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero Jr., popularly known as the “Father of Chicano Music,” passed away on Thursday March 17, at the age of 88. Born in Tuscon, Arizona in 1916, Guerrero’s mother taught him to play the guitar when he was a young child. He moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s and spent most of his adult life in California.

Lalo Guerrero recorded over 700 songs in virtually every genre of Latin music. He also wrote popular music for children, and songs addressing the social issues faced by his community. One of his best known songs is “Cancion Mexicana,” considered by many to be Mexico’s unofficial anthem. His Pachuco music of the late 1940s and early 1950s provided the soundtrack to Luis Valdez’s popular play and movie of the late 1970s “Zoot Suit.” His final recording is on Ry Cooder’s “Chavez Ravine,” an album recalling Los Angeles’s old Mexican neighborhoods. The disc will be released in June.

Guerrero received international recognition for his music. President Clinton gave him the Medal of the Arts in 1997, and he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship in 1991. The Smithsonian Institution named him a National Folk Treasure in 1980, and he also accepted the Nosotros Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mexican Cultural Institute.

He is survived by his wife Lidia, former wife Margaret Marmion, sons Dan and Mark, stepson Jose Guerrero, stepdaughter Patricia Lowry, a granddaughter, grandson, three sisters, and two brothers.

Advocacy

Action Alert – April 12, 2005

URGENT: Letters Needed for Two Bills Supporting the Arts

Assembly Bill 655 (Leno)

AB 655, introduced by Assembly Member Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) will establish a continuous funding stream for the California Arts Council and could generate in excess of $30,000,000 to support California’s non-profit arts and culture annually. This bill will levy a one percent fee on admissions at all entertainment venues in the state, both private and non-profit. This will stabilize arts funding and remove a great deal of pressure to identify General Fund dollars for the arts.

This bill needs your support. Already the Motion Picture industry, the California Chamber of Commerce, the Theatre Owners Association and the California Taxpayers Association have come out in opposition.

First Committee Hearing: April 19: Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media Committee (Fourth Level Heading)

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION: Fax a letter supporting AB 655 today!

Honorable Assembly Member Ed Chavez
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0057
Fax: (916) 319-2157

Honorable Assembly Member Mark Leno
State Capitol
P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0013
Fax: (916) 319-2113

Sample Letter

April 11, 2005

Honorable Assembly Member Ed Chavez
Chair, Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media
State Capitol, P.O. Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0057

Dear Assemblymember Chavez,

I am writing this letter in support of AB 655.

I urge you and your fellow committee members to support AB 655 that would establish a continuous funding stream to support California art and culture. As you know, California has been internationally recognized as a hub of creativity; our state’s creative energy feeds our economy and keeps our state vibrant and innovative in many different ways.

But California's reputation as an investor in the arts and as a center of noteworthy artistic accomplishments is suffering. Today, California's art funding is dead last in the nation in per capita funding for the arts. Our state spends about $0.05 per person when the national average is $1.00.

We are witnessing the results of our children growing up without art and culture in their schools or in their neighborhoods. AB 655 will help to restore our state's previous reputation as a leader in creative ideas and artistic endeavors.

Revenues generated by AB 655 will be directed to the California Arts Council, an agency that supports arts activities and participation throughout the state in cities large and small, and in rural, suburban and urban areas. If passed, the legislation will provide jobs to thousands in the non-profit arts field.

Again, I urge the Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media to support AB 655.

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

Senate Bill 691 (Speier)

SB 691, introduced by Senator Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), will exempt the personalized Arts License Plate from a portion of the fees being diverted to the Environmental License Plate Fund. It has recently become known to the California Arts Council that most of the funds generated from Arts personalized plates has been contributing to the Environmental License Plate Fund and used to support the administrative activities of other agencies of the state that deal with environmental issues.

The Arts Plate is the most popular plate in the state and most plates sold are personalized plates. The public (and the CAC) believed the total purchase and renewal fees were directed to support the arts. Only recently did it become known that this arrangement was in place.

It appears that over the first ten years $6 million has been raised for the arts and $10 million for the environment. Senator Speier was able to exempt the children's plate from such requirements (that all personalized plates contribute a portion of the fees to the Environmental License Plate Fund) some years ago. She is seeking to exempt the Arts Plate as well as a companion piece to the Children's plate since most of the funds from the Arts Plate support arts for children. She also sees it as a fairness issue—considering that the arts have been so drastically cut and that people believe they have been contributing solely to the arts through their Arts license plates purchases.

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION: Fax a letter supporting SB 691 to Senator Speier today!

Senator Jackie Speier
State Capitol, Room 2032
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: (916) 327-2186

top

WHAT'S NEW