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In This Issue:
About Us:
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts promotes and supports ways for cultural traditions to thrive now and into the future by providing advocacy, resources, and connections for folk and traditional artists and their communities.
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 ACTA Hosts NEA Chairman: Highlighting the San Joaquin Valley on a National Level
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NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman (third from left) during a panel discussion
at Fresno's Arte Americas. Photo: ACTA
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By Eric Cesar Morales, Intern, Alliance for California Traditional Arts
On May 24-25, 2011, the Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), Rocco Landesman, visited the San Joaquin Valley in response to a formal invitation extended by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts. Accompanying him were Jamie Bennett, the Director of Public Affairs for the NEA, and Anita Decker, Chief of Staff and White House Liaison for the NEA. For the arts organizations and artists in the valley, this was a momentous occasion as it marked the first time in history that any Chair of the NEA has come to the area, giving the valley the opportunity to showcase local arts and culture, potentially ushering in a time where the Central Valley would gain greater visibility, no longer neglected as attention and resources are channeled largely to the Bay Area and Southern California.
 Landesman's visit to the Central Valley included demonstrations and performances by local traditional artists, including Western Mono basketweaver Julie Tex, Mexican American singer and National Heritage Fellow Carmencristina Moreno, and Aremenian oud musician and National Heritage Fellow Richard Hagopian.
 
Read more...
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ACTA Hosts Statewide Informational Meetings and Webinars
Join ACTA staff for an informational meeting in your area to learn more about our funding opportunities for artists and organizations. Or, if you can't make an informational meeting, join us for a webinar.
Upcoming meetings will be held in: Eureka/Arcata (June 2), Santa Ana (June 7), San Diego (June 8), and Los Angeles (June 9 and June 11: Spanish only).
A webinar will be held on June 10.
Read more...
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ACTA Welcomes Interns Jazm�n Morales and Eric Morales
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ACTA interns Jazm�n Morales (left) and Eric Morales. |
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts is pleased to welcome two interns to the ACTA family!
Jazm�n Natialia Morales, a student in Ethnomusicology at UCLA, recently joined ACTA and is working in the Southern California region. Jazm�n, a Mariachi practitioner herself, is helping develop an online Mariachi resource guide and conducting site visits with current Living Cultures Grants Program projects that focus on Latino music. She is also involved in the implementation of the project Activating Cultural Assets in Building Healthy Communities Places, which includes creating profiles of individual artists and arts related organizations in 14 sites throughout California.
Eric Cesar Morales, a graduate student in folklore at Indiana University, is working on various projects in the Central Valley, including an evaluation of the Traditional Arts Sustainability Project and the Activating Cultural Assets in Building Healthy Communities Places project.
Read more... |
All Dressed in Kapa
 | | Mau a Mau, a pa'u hula (traditional kapa hula skirt) by Wende Ke'aka Stitt. Photo courtesy of Wende Ke'aka Stitt |
By Wende Ke'aka Stitt
Editor's Note: Wende Ke'aka Stitt, a former Traditional Arts Development Program participant and featured master artist in Halau o Kawainuhi's Living Cultures Grants Program project, had the honor of being included in a gathering of Hawaii's finest and most traditional kapa, or bark cloth, makers for a historic public display in Hilo, Hawaii, a few months ago. In the following article she discusses her experience. In February of 2010, I was invited by my kumu kapa, Dalani Tanahy of Makaha, Hawai'i, to join 22 kapa makers in Hawai'i to participate in An Artistic Collaboration with the renown Halau 'O Kekuhi of Hilo, Hawai'i. Our goal was to create traditional hula garments that the halau would wear in performance on the opening night of the 2011 Merrie Monarch Festival. This would be the first time that an entire hula halau in Hawai'i would be outfitted in traditional kapa garments in over 200 years. Read more...
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ACTA Introduces the Thai Heritage Returns 2011 Blog
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Dancers from the Thai Cultural Center of the San Francisco Bay Area at practice. Photo courtesy of Virada Chatikul
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The Thai Cultural Center of the San Francisco Bay Area's
Thai Heritage Returns is a ten-day program in July 2011 during which Thai-American students will perform Phra Apai Manee and the Spell of Nang Laweng, a Thai classical dance drama, at the National Theatre in Bangkok.
Thai-American dancers and program coordinators Virada Chatikul and Nicha Kittitanaphan will be performing and furthering their own traditonal arts learning during this project. They will be blogging about their experiences through the summer. We look forward to their posts which will afford us the opportunity to reflect upon questions of identity and location.
Visit the Thai Heritage Returns 2011 blog.
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