About this project
Cultures in Harmony (CiH) is pleased to announce a project that will help preserve the endangered languages of Papua New Guinea through musical composition and performance. For four weeks in August 2010, CiH will send soprano Tiffany DuMouchelle, percussionist Stephen Solook, and a composer to Papua New Guinea. The purpose of this project is to create living documentation of the critically endangered languages of Papua New Guinea. According to UNESCO, there are twenty critically endangered languages in Papua New Guinea. On average, approximately 32 speakers remain per language.
This project will follow our first project in Papua New Guinea in 2008. It will demonstrate to people in Papua New Guinea that Americans are deeply concerned about cultural preservation, and it will showcase the beauty of the culture of Papua New Guinea to audiences around the United States.
Part 1: Language Documentation and Composition Creation
Our itinerary will allow us to involve ten dying languages in two provinces in the project. In Madang province, those languages will be Mawak, Kowaki, Bilakura, and Dumun. For Morobe province, those languages will be Taap, Sene, Kamasa, Kawucha, Susuami, and Yarawi.
For each language, CiH will meet with the speakers of the language and document poetry, songs, history, and other important cultural data. The speakers (with help from CiH) will compose a poem in their language to be used in the final composition. Aspects of traditional music, history, and other relative cultural material will also be used in the final composition. All activities will be documented with photographs, video and audio recording, and journals. In each town, CiH will offer outreach activities as a part of their cultural exchange. The composer will create a large multi-movement work for voice and percussion (may also include a CD or tape part involving audio recordings made during the documentation process). This composition will depend on the use of indigenous instruments (voice and percussion) that are part of the cultures being represented.
Part 2: Outreach Performances in Papua New Guinea
Participants will travel throughout Papua New Guinea to perform the new composition, comprised of all twenty endangered languages. This tour will include outreach activities in conjunction with performances. Other musical groups from Papua New Guinea may be asked to join the members from CiH for this outreach tour. The purpose of this tour will be to help people in Papua New Guinea realize how quickly aspects of their culture are slipping away, and hopefully increase their realization of this and their appreciation for what they still have. This is in response to our previous trip to PNG, where the people we worked with said, “we knew that our culture was slipping away, but we didn’t know what to do about it, and so we were letting it go.” We hope that this may help further the process already begun by such organizations as the Culture and Environment Global Awareness Team, under the direction of Alex Korom.
Part 3:; Outreach Performances in USA; Recording and Documentation
CiH participants Tiffany DuMouchelle and Stephen Solook will continue to perform the newly composed work in venues throughout the USA (and elsewhere) through their duo, Aurora Borealis. They will take this composition to schools, libraries, and other performance venues sharing what they have learned about Papua New Guinea and the importance of cultural preservation. This composition may also be performed for future CiH projects either in the USA or other countries abroad. Actively performing these new works, along with recording and otherwise documenting the project will offer a physical means of retaining these dying languages. The documentation gathered will be used to create a documentary to help build awareness about cultural preservation. Concerts may be presented in conjunction with ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, music, and other such departments at Universities.
Facts
Papua New Guinea has 820 indigenous languages (over 1/10th of the world’s languages) - not including dialects. Twelve percent of these languages are endangered, and 20% of the endangered languages are critically endangered, and near to extinction. Half of the critically endangered languages have 10 people or less who still speak the language.
If we are fortunate enough to raise enough money for this trip, additional funds may be used to towards other projects of Cultures in Harmony.
FAQ
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This project reached the deadline without achieving its funding goal on March 31, 2010.
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You will be mentioned in the credits of the documentary.
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Above + a photo from a Cultures in Harmony Project.
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Above + Your name will be printed with a consortium of people on the title page of the works being composed for this project.
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Above + a Cultures in Harmony t-shirt.
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Above + a framed "Hands of Friendship". When you make a donation to Cultures in Harmony, you are extending the hand of friendship to someone in another country. On our projects, we ask people to design "Hands of Friendship" which represent their willingness to reach back and grasp your hand. Don't miss your opportunity to own one of these charming artworks!
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Above + One of the 10 landmark works being composed for this historical trip will be dedicated to you & you will receive a recording of that masterpiece. (limited)
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Above + a private performance in either Southern California or the NY Metropolitan area by the gifted performers of Cultures in Harmony.
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Above + You will be named sponsor of one aspect of the trip to Papua New Guinea (Field Research, Documentary or Audio Recording). You will also now belong in history with this chance to save these languages before they die.
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Cultures in Harmony forges connections across cultural and national barriers through the medium of music. Its international projects involve six key components: performing with local musicians, working with children, partnering with humanitarian organizations, affirming cultural diversity, engaging in dialogue, and promoting democratic values. Through the universal language of music, our projects foster cross-cultural dialogue that improves relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
In Zimbabwe in 2006, "Sound of Water, Sound of Hope," taught AIDS orphans in Harare how to write music inspired by water in order to draw attention to water access issues at their school. In the Philippines in 2007, CiH worked with the Tala-Andig tribe in Miarayon, Mindanao to develop compositions that celebrated their heritage. In Papua New Guinea in 2008, CiH guided the Yoro tribe to creating compositions designed to raise awareness about the environment, HIV/AIDS, and cultural preservation. These works received their premiere at Divine Word University in Madang.
In Konya, Turkey, where the whirling dervish ceremony originated about 700 years ago, CiH musicians became the first female musicians ever in Konya to join male musicians in accompanying the ceremony. Cultures in Harmony has partnered with humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF in Moldova, with whom it partnered in a benefit concert that collected 7,000 books for their childhood literacy program. In Zimbabwe, our benefit concert for the non-profit Eyes for Africa raised enough funds to restore sight to 145 people, prompting Zimbabwean ophthalmologist Dr. Solomon Guramatunhu to write about Cultures in Harmony, "You are the 'beautiful face of America' which the world is yearning for."
Cultures in Harmony workshops for young classical musicians have benefited hundreds of students in Qatar, Egypt, Philippines, Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Tunisia. Performances with local musicians (from tabla players in Pakistan to a virtuoso of the mvet in Cameroon) have received national media attention as well as the praise of members of the international diplomatic corps.
Cultures in Harmony has been profiled in The Zimbabwe Herald, Reforma (Mexico), and in The Juilliard Journal, as well as on radio in New York, Indianapolis, Bloomington, Chicago, and Spokane, and on national radio in the U.S. (NPR's Performance Today), Moldova, Tunisia, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
Samanyola TV in Turkey profiled the successful Cultures in Harmony benefit concert for the celebrated humanitarian organization Kimse Yok Mu. In Tunisia, Mr. Harvey appeared as a guest on Morning Breeze, the most popular national TV program. In Pakistan, national TV aired a documentary about our project there. CiH received major gifts from the United States Department of State and the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation.
Cultures in Harmony is a not-for-profit corporation exempt from Federal Income Tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to Cultures in Harmony are deductible under section 170 of the Code. Cultures in Harmony is also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code.
