Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map share their languages and cultures (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Technology and UAF are letting indigenous people from across the map
share their languages and cultures

By Robinson Duffy
Staff Writer
Published February 16, 2007
http://newsminer.com/2007/02/16/5262/

It’s 7,500 miles from Fairbanks to Brazil, but for some indigenous
dancers in both countries Thursday afternoon, the miles melted away.

Thanks to cameras, computers, digital projectors, microphones and a
stunningly high-speed network connection, a Native Alaskan dance group
at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able to communicate,
collaborate and perform live with dance groups in Florida, Mexico,
Ecuador and Brazil.

“This really opens up the door for us to speak, to look at, to develop
relationships with people from all over the world,” said Scott Deal, an
associate professor in the music department at UAF and one of the
coordinators of the event. “Here in Alaska, distance is a formidable
obstacle. This gives us the opportunity to communicate with people all
over the world. It’s sort of like giving wings to our university.”

Members of the Inu-Yupiaq Dancers at UAF performed in the Arctic Region
Supercomputing Center’s Discovery Lab. The high-tech facility was wired
with cameras and microphones and hummed with computers, but the dancers
and drummers drowned all that out as they performed a Yup’ik
purification song.

Their performance was broadcast live over the network connection and
streamed into the other facilities across the hemisphere. Three large
screens in the lab showed live video broadcasts of the other dancers.
Everyone participating in the event could see everyone else and could
talk back and forth.

Each group took turns performing a song from their respective cultures.
In Brazil, young men danced in grass skirts while wearing elaborate
headdresses with decorative beads strung over their bare shoulders. In
Mexico, two men in colorful clothing played simple string instruments.
In Ecuador, a number of young people danced to a lively song played by
a motley band.

The clothing and musical styles were all different, yet those
participating said they felt a unique connection.

“When I listen to other people’s music there’s that same beat, that same
heartbeat that I hear,” Walkie Charles, a Yup’ik professor who performed
with the Fairbanks singers, said. “We beat the same drums.”

Getting to interact with people on the other side of the world was a
treat, Joel Forbes, one of the Inu-Yupiaq dancers, said. It was
amazing, he said, to get to share his art and his culture with people
so far away.

“I’ve never seen anybody from Ecuador before,” Forbes, 19, said. “It’s
just a nice feeling to know that someone who has never seen anything
like this (Alaska Native dancing) before is getting to see it and enjoy
it.”

The advances in technology that make experiences like this possible are
a boon to the people living in the rural areas of Alaska, Forbes said.

“In the village where I come from, Togiak, some people, they don’t know
there’s a whole world out there and this is opening doors to places we
may never get to see firsthand,” he said.

After each of the groups performed, the dancers, with the help of
interpreters, were able to ask each other questions about their
respective cultures and the different indigenous instruments they were
playing. They even shared a few jokes.

Then all of the groups, using a special digital metronome to keep them
in sync, sang a song together, “Children of a Common Mother.” Each
group had adapted the song to fit their culture’s style of music and
translated it into their own language. In a cacophony of cultures,
voices, languages and instruments, the song rang out from across the
world.

Contact staff writer Robinson Duffy at 459-7523 or rduffy at newsminer.com.