Montagnard Final Project

These final weeks of DM we as a class have been exploring the Montagnard people as a whole, their culture; traditional and contemporary, religion, their assimilation into the American melting pot, etc. All of these aspects of this wonderfully rich culture have been challenged and placed in jeopardy with what has happened in thier home counrty. They are now scattered throughout the world, here in The United States of America, we have a very high population of Montagnard Refugees. This is what I found at the Greensboro Multi-Cultural Event on Saturday May 21, 2011.
ref·u·gee

   /ˌrɛfyʊˈdʒi, ˈrɛfyʊˌdʒi/ Show Spelled[ref-yoo-jee, ref-yoo-jee] Show IPA

–noun

1.

a person who flees for refuge or safety, especially to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc.

2.

political refugee.

"A person who flees for refuge or safety" At the cultural fair I witnessed first hand generations of Montagnard people mingling living freely and openly with the very Americanized population that excitably bull dozed thier way toward there booths of crafts, arts, and food.

What was most strinking was the sameness that I saw in the seemingly American young people and that of the Montagnard youth.

As I walked through the booth area I immediatly caught the eye of a very young, clearly anglo young man and his sister, why we locked eyes so intensly I would never come to find, however I saw that they were accompanied by yet another pair of what I deducted to be siblings, intrestingly this pair was of Montagnard heritage. The young man doned a New York Yankees Cap, the girl complete with her skinny Levi jeans and low top converse looked very contemporary and very for a lack of another word American. What was different was the magnificent elephant bracelet worn by the girl and the Montagnard flag draped over the young mans shoulders. I watched these four for a very long time, they seemed to be very familiar with one another.

It was only when i ran into them again this time polarized in thier cultural groups. The Montagnard pair grouped with a parental figure and younger sibling speaking thier own language, and physically communicating with a very specific body language;the women speaking with thier hands either neatly folded or held at thier sides, while the men stood some what apart from the women and spoke with a slight emphasis in torso posture that would rival that of any NCSA Ballet major.

My trip concluded with a walk throughout the park area, listening to the music being played on the near by stage. A song rang out over the loud speaker, it was simply named "Refugee" the lyrics were easy to remember but hard and alien for me to say:

Its hard...

Its hard...

Its hard...

Being a refugee...

Refugee!

Refugee!

Too too far away from home...

(Repeat)

These words pierced through the audience and for one moment I felt alien and out of place. The Montagnard booths, the South African booths, South East Asia booth, Pakistan, Poland, and every booth in between was raptured into this song. They were all refugees, escaping to refuge here in the United states of America.

It was here that it hit me. We were all very different, culturally, religiousl, ethnically, but we all, the americans in the audience as well have all experienced in one way or another what it is to be displaced, rather its New Orleans with Katrina. England the Puritans, or Haiti we have all had to come together and live and learn from one another. This is what makes America-AMERICA. I am pleased to add the Montagnards and thier culture and customs to our wonderful melting pot.

Framing

What is Framing? How our minds work in understanding things and situations. Our basic means of how we organize our stimulation to the outside world, the input. Our initial responses, definitions, points of view, and behavior all come from these frames.These frames are formed from the time we are infants and are pretty hard wired by the time we reach the age of 10. Though we are all always vulnerable to a breaking of our frames or the slight emergence of new frames.


Why is framing important and what does it do for us? How valid is it?




Framing is an organic process that happens in our minds without any help or prompting it is our mind working to understand the world around us. When one sees something that makes no since or that is impossible for them to understand, it is because the frame does not exist for them.

In our digital age we have all made a individual frame for higher technology or we have made adjustments to other frames in order to understand it. Framing rationalizes and allows us to understand people and their limitations. Racism, Athletic Ability, Artistic aptitude, technological flexibility can all be traced back to ones frame work. 

Classic and Contemporary

For my Remix video I have selected two pieces of Theatrical text one of a contemporary nature performed by Tyrone Mills a 2012 NYU Masters Candidate. The piece represents the movement from passed African-American ideology to its newest state. The character portrayed in this piece is in the middle of a heated argument with his father over what it means not only to be a black man but a man in todays society.

The Theatre has forever been a means of social commentary and social liberation, in my Classical Selection we see William Shakespeare's Othello, the title character a black moor after the world of the play has tackled him and placed him in a no win situation wrought with jealousy we find Othello after he has murdered his Love, Desdemona. Othello is perplexed by the hoodwinking of his so called friend Iago. 

These two pieces represent for me the huge continuum in language and in subject matter. The Music being played under the pieces is that of Ennio Morricone a fantastic musical composer, it was actually the first piece of emotional text put into the project, becoming the foundation and the inspiration for the two performances. I hope you enjoy them.

Montagnard Dega Interest

Whoa,
           Meeting with the Montagnards via Skype was great. I have the most interest in what their theatre community is like. I am aware that we never really touched on it, though we did discuss their music and cultural arts to some extent. I am interested to see what there theatrical practices are and how they are similar or different from our western classical approaches to the theater. I have some ideas but I am sure I'm probably off on a few things.

These web pages will help out. They discuss the Hip-Hop Culture in the Dega movement. Hip-hop is form of dance that can in many ways tell a story, the other web page is web page discussing the history of the Montagnard people, history is where most all art comes from, this will serve as a possible spring board into the life content of a potential Theater piece.
 http://www.cal.org/co/montagnards/vpeop.html
 http://diacritics.org/2011/01/05/mondegas-for-the-people-a-montagnard-hip-hop-debut/

 
An actor or orator in the Montagnard community could help me out in this. It would be exciting to do a silent clown piece with him or her, there is no language and the physical acting is purely technique and and organic impulses.

Ghana and I

Origins

Born In Lompoc, California

                       Raised in Dallas, Texas