Monday, April 17 to Friday, June 30, 2000

Indo-Caribbean Heritage is a series of fortnightly Tuesday family programs from April to June 2000 highlighting the history, arts, and customs of Indo-Caribbean (East Indian) communities in the New York metropolitan and Tri-state area. The multi-media program presents exhibitions of photographs, artifacts and traditional health and nutrition practices, music and dance recitals, lectures and slide shows, video documentaries, poetry in performance, visual art design and decoration, and ceremonial and processional drum music.

Presented in collaboration with

THE RAJKUMARI CULTURAL CENTER

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EXHIBITIONS

On Exhibit Monday, April 10 to Friday, June 30, 2000

Opening Reception

Place: Gallery, Caribbean Cultural Center

Date: Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Time: 6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Fragments of Memory: The Making of Indo-Caribbean Heritage

Karna Singh, a fifth generation East Indian born in Guyana, traces the odyssey of his elders from India to the Caribbean region and their intimate connection with the origin of several unique Indo-Caribbean traditions during the 20th century. The elaborate narrative collage, specially designed by Singh for this program, uses rare photographic, written and oral sources that include The Jung Bahadur Singh Collection of forty-eight black-and-white originals donated by the presenter to the National Trust of Guyana in 1976. It is Singh’s view that both his personal and communal heritage are a dynamic ‘making’ that blends memory, creativity, and life.

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Wise Earth Ayurveda: Sadhana of Food, Breath & Sound

In collaboration with the Wise Earth School of Ayurveda and the Mother Om Mission

Wise Earth Ayurveda is a unique thought and practice founded by the distinguished Guyanese Vedic monk, teacher and author, Brahmacharini Maya Tiwari, and based on ancient Vedic knowledge. The conceptual design and arrangement of the exhibit is guided by traditional spiritual, botanical, and nutritional systems taught to Caribbean disciples of Bri. Maya Tiwari. According to Bri. Maya

Wise Earth Ayurveda Sadhana is one of the most significant tools for self-healing. This practice of sadhana consists of wholesome activities of food, breath and sound. Just as we cannot separate body, mind and spirit, neither can we separate food, breath and sound from each other. Integrally connected, they provide a path of practice that brings us in harmony with the universal rhythms and helps us to cultivate abundant health.

Ayurveda is an ancient holistic system of healing which springs from the visions of Vedic rishis. The greatest physicians, physicists, and theologians of all times, the rishis, saw the universe’s spiritual anatomy and demonstrated how its principles are deeply rooted in nature’s intelligence and therefore in the integration of body, mind and spirit.

Tan Sangeet and Nautch of Trinidad: Indo-Caribbean Music and Dance

Tuesday, April 25, 2000

7:00 to 8:30 P.M.

Sampat Dino Boodram, famous singer and musician, performs the unique Indo-Caribbean musical genre, called Tan Sangeet in Guyana and Trinidad and Baithak Gana in Suriname. He accompanies himself on the harmonium with Errol Balkissoon and Raymond Seetal Sampat playing dholak (drum) and dhantal (a metal rod). Like the vocal and instrumental music, the dances, known as Nautch and performed by ‘Nautch Queen’ Denyse Baboolal, also derive from fragmentary forms of North Indian semi-classical, folk and devotional traditions. These highly soloistic and dynamic art expressions acquired a unique Caribbean flavor in the diasporic culture.

Traditional Music and Dance of the Madrasi People of Guyana

In collaboration with the New York-New Jersey Madrasi Society

Tuesday, June 6, 2000

7:00 to 8:30 P.M.

Chinappa Virasawmi, singer and custodian, leads the musical group of the New York- New Jersey Madrasi Society and Indo-Caribbean choreographers and dancers, Pritha Singh, Teshrie and Ramona Kalicharan, in traditional presentations of sacred invocation and thanksgiving and stories from the Indian epic, Mahabharadam. The art forms are expressions of the dynamic spiritual and cultural heritage of the small Madrasi community in Guyana, whose ancestral roots are in the Tamil region of southern India. He is accompanied on the drum by his son, Danny Virasawmi, with Errol and Savitri Virasawmi and Haresh Apanna as supporting singers.

Documentaries: Hail Mother Kali and Tan-Singing of Trinidad and Guyana

Tuesday, May 23, 2000

6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Hail Mother Kali: A Tribute to the Traditions and Healing Arts Brought to Guyana by Indentured Madrasi Laborers was made in 1998 by Stephanos Stephanides, a Greek Cypriot and linguist. It documents Big Puja, the annual invocation and worship of the Hindu medicine and cure goddess in Guyana. Peter Manuel, American ethnomusicologist, traces the history and aesthetics of East Indian musical culture in Tan-Singing of Trinidad and Guyana: Indo-Caribbean “Local-Classical Music” released in February 2000

Indo-Caribbean Panorama: Lecture and Slide Show

Tuesday, May 2, 2000

6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Karna Singh introduces the series with Indo-Caribbean Panorama, a lecture and slide show with a special cultural geography of Richmond Hill district in Queens, New York, the largest Indo-Caribbean neighborhood and cultural Mecca in the U.S. Slides are drawn from the works of outstanding contemporary photographers, Kumar Mahabir, Isa Albareda, Stephanos Stephanides, Nala Singham and Veretta Cobler, and of unknown masters from the early 20th century.

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Indo-Caribbean Literature: Polemics and Poetics

Tuesday, May 9, 2000

6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

A galaxy of Caribbean literary and theatrical stars active in New York presents a rich feast of spoken words in performance from prose and poetry by and about Indo-Caribbeans. Claud Leandro, Mahadeo Shivraj, Taij Kumarie Moteelall, Nirmala Singh, and Pritha Singh offer up selections from their own works and those of others, several in Caribbean English Creole vernaculars and New York rap styles. Polemical readings are from Derek Walcott’s The Antilles: Fragments of Epic History and Rajkumari Singh’s I am a Coolie.

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Padma Mandala: Designing and Decorating Ceremony

Design and decoration of lotus sand-painting and ceremonial canopy

Tuesday, June 20, 2000

6:30 to 8:30 P.M.

Karna Singh guides the making of padma mandala, the lotus circle, with colored sand, and its ceremonial canopy. He is assisted by his brother, Shiva Singh, as chanter, Ramnarine Sasenarine as drummer, and other mandala-makers. Color, shape and sound wake the mind to free creative play. The fully unfolded blossom is offered water, flowers, fruit, and incense, then smudged and erased, marking the natural passage of the life cycle. The dissolved mandala is finally immersed in water, its dark creative source. The canopy is made of bamboo with cloth, paper, and mica ornamentation. The ritual space is also decorated with coconut flowers, flags and strings of aromatic leaves. This colorful ceremony offers a rich experience of the diverse natural and elemental forms making up Indo-Caribbean aesthetics and culture.

The alliance formed by regional organizations that have identified needs and projects that can not be implemented in isolation within each region will facilitate an important collaboration among proven experts in the field. In order to address more than five hundred years of historical marginalization of Afro-Latino communities, the ravages of colonialism and neo-colonial systems, and the new challenge of globalization concerted unified effort is required to develop a comprehensive strategy to address issues of poverty, educational alienation and the systemic violations of human, civil, economic and land rights.

One of the priorities of GALCI is to make visible the diversity of communities that identify the Afro-Latino world and their status within these countries of the hemisphere. There is a need to gather information on the location of these communities, their existing and projected conditions is essential as they enter the third millennium.

The marginalization of Afro-Latino communities globally, has resulted in little educational opportunity, poor employment opportunities, discrimination, loss of land, and economic disenfranchisement. GALCI seeks to assist and work with Afro-Latino communities by establishing a working alliance of organizations and universities that have a successful history of cultural development within and across ethnic boundaries. Respecting the focus of local and regional organizational initiatives, GALCI will address macro concerns to directly assist and impact the micro level by providing much needed data, staff training and proven professionals to work at the ground level.

GALCI is a special project of the Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute that is housed at 408 West 58th Street in New York City. A not for profit twenty three year old organization the Center’s raison d’être is establishing common ground among communities of African descent internationally. The member organizations have affirmed that the base of GALCI should be in New York since an organizational arm must be present at the central location with access to foundations and United States governmental international agencies promoting socioeconomic development in the Caribbean and Latin America are based.

The vision of GALCI is one that seeks the health and safety of our communities into the future. Focusing on immediate and long-range initiatives the projects each build upon the other, establishing a foundation to achieve the goal of long-range sustainability. The long track record of participating organizations provides a solid foundation for the alliance as each member brings their existing information and documentation data, regional organizational networks and institutional experiences.

Programmatic Outline:
1. Research Initiative: To develop a directory of Afro-Latino NGO’s in the Americas. The organizational profile of each organization will include the following: Name, address, and years in existence, organization’s mission, annual budget, sources of funding, history of programs, staff profile, staff, staff needs and programmatic initiatives. This project will provide much needed information to local, national and international agencies in understanding the existing organizational Afro-Latino community infrastructure.

2: Training of NGO Staffs: The research initiative will provide the necessary data to assist in identifying and developing program initiatives for the local, regional and international levels. An immediate need is to build the organizational and technical skills of existing staffs in local organizations. The fragile status of organizations, due to lack of resources and untrained staff limits the possibility of organizations accessing or applying to funding agencies. Training programs GALCI will recommend could include accounting; small businesses promotion; gender specific enterprise development; board structure; governance and other related institution building skills. A major objective will be to prepare Afro Latino organizations to apply for programs of micro credit support.

3: Human Rights and the Civil Society Initiative: The process of having Afro Latino communities assume their democratic rights is of major concern to GALCI. Issues of land rights, human rights and civil rights litigation to assure the safety and well being of Afro Latino communities requires the availability and involvement of consultants to assist these communities in understanding and protecting their inalienable rights. Afro-Latino communities’ descendents of enslaved Africans, who forged maroon societies in the Americas, require legal advice and strategies to remain on their historically liberated lands. The expertise that is available to GALCI can provide Afro-Latino communities with technical assistance in forging their vision for a better today and tomorrow.

4: Building Common Ground: The community of Afro-Latinos require diverse forms of training of their future leaders. There are varied programs within the United States willing to institute specialize training programs to impart necessary skills for developing the younger generation of community leaders. The University of Texas-Austin, Hunter College CUNY and Baruch College CUNY in New York are examples of institutions able to develop specialized educational programs to prepare the future successors of the present Afro Latino movement. Specializing in anthropology, sociology, business, political science, communications, technology and public policy these and other institutions can provide critical educational opportunities and skills needed within these communities.

5: Regional Meetings for 2001: The United Nations Anti-Racism Conference to take place in South Africa provides the organizational incentive to prepare the Afro-Latino community to actively participate and have significant representation at this historic gathering. GALCI, in collaboration with the existing regional Afro Latino networks will help facilitate the planning of at least six meetings in the Caribbean, Latin America, Central America and the United States. These regional meetings will provide a focal point to gather information, begin training and recruiting youth leadership for the educational initiatives developed by GALCI.

GALCI Alliance
GALCI includes the following organizations and representatives:

Humberto Brown
Internatonal Secretariat, BRC
Afro-Latino Network
Panama/United States

Celeo Alvarez Casildo, President
Organizacion Negra Centroamericana (ONECA)
Organizacion de Desarrollo Etnico (ODECO)
Honduras

Jesús Garcia
Fundacion AfroAmerica
Venezuela

Luz Maria Martinez Montiel, President
AfroAmerica Mexico, A.C.
Mexico

Jorge Ramirez Reyna, President
Asociacion Negra de Defensa y Promocion de los Derechos Humanos (ASONEDH)
Peru

Romero Rodriguez, President
MundoAfro
Uruguay

J. Michael Turner, Director
Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Hunter College (CUNY)
USA

Marta Moreno Vega, President & Chair
The Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute
Professor Black and Hispanic Studies Department, Baruch College (CUNY)
USA

Sheila Walker, Director
African and Afro-American Studies Program
University of Texas-Austin
USA