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Port of Call |
LAST UPDATE July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| January 17, 2004 |
The Artist Ambassadors at the Intercontinental Youth Camp
" The Art of Creating Another World - Free Your Mind" |
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A key component of Peace Boat's activities at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, the "Artist Ambassadors" performed to hundreds of delegates at the Intercontinental Youth Camp.
Hailing from the Bay Area in California, but with family roots stretching across the globe: Native America, Peru, Japan, Zimbabwe and Mexico, were the five Artist Ambassadors who arrived at the World Social Forum onboard Peace Boat. Charged with enough talent and buzz to ignite a fire, these politically switched-on young activists wasted no time before they started communicating their 'exercises of focused spontaneity'.
Using song, poetry, hip hop, theater, dialogue, visual art, chanting and a bunch of other ways to activate and energize their interactive audience - the group prompts people to think 'outside the box'. Up on the main stage of the Intercontinental Youth Camp, a current of electrical engagement ran between Machingura, the soulful Zimbabwean who sang, hummed and stirred up a chanting storm between him and his audience. Whether it was educating about HIV/AIDS ('Fund da Global Fund! That's right - Fund da Global Fund!'), or advocating against war and militarization, the man held them captive.
Naomi Quinones uses spoken word and theater to tell her family's story of displacement, oppression and suffering that sprung from their Japanese-Peruvian identity while living in the United States during the war years. The lasting moral of such intimate sharing being the need to make the US government, and all governments, accountable for their actions. Naomi's eloquence may not have been fully understood by everyone - given the multinational, and large non-English speaking crowd. However, the response was overwhelming, judging by the cheering audience of around 1000 people.
The third part of the onstage posse was African-American hip-hop artiste Kamau Abayomi, a.k.a. Pitch Black Gold. Rapping about spirituality and how it plays out in everyday life, intersecting with socio-political issues like land ownership and indigenous connections to the land, it was clear that people were listening up. Hip-hop may not be so popular in India (just yet!) but the sounds of Pitch Black Gold grabbed plenty of attention, even from passers by. It was as if this US-grown breed of music and expression had found instant intercontinental appeal in the suburban streets of Bombay.
Without a microphone, but always with a keen spirit of creativity to engage the public, is visual artist Caleb Duarte. Taking advantage of the huge walls that have been constructed for the mass conferences at the Youth Camp, Caleb is using inspiration from all around him - squalor and wealth, conflict and harmony, black and white, to fuse together a mural that represents Another World Is Possible - the slogan of the World Social Forum.
Documentarian Eden Williams is meanwhile capturing this audio and visual explosion of colour and expression on her various cameras. By documenting the dynamic experiences and Asia-Pacific travels of The Artist Ambassadors, she'll be able to broadcast the messages that the group have been sharing with an even wider audience, particularly back in the United States.
Channel V, India's most popular television music station, took an avid interest in the talented five, and spent time interviewing and recording them performing. How great to see the mainstream providers of limelight and creative airtime snapping up our American independent, alternative and minority artists! |
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| Information about Peace Boat and the WSF process >>Read more – www.forumsocialmundial.org.br
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