Ndebele Doll

 

 

 

The Ndebele Doll

The story of dolls and their makers has linked numerous countries not only through mutually beneficial trade and enterprise but also as a result of historical events.

The original Ndebele doll was hooped and Michelin Man like. Beaded dolls vary in size and shape. Old beads from used pepetu are incorporated into the hoops encircling the body of the doll. The body is constructed from tightly wrapped old rags and then covered with a layer of beads over which predominantly white hoops are placed, although splashes of blue, red, green, and orange are also used. The faces are usually are usually pink, while the hair is consistently black.

 

Ndebele History

The Ndebele are south Nguni people who by the 16th century had emerged as a separate group and where settled in the eastern parts of the Transvaal Province of South Africa. The Ndebele are divided into the Ndzundza and the Manala subgroups, and during apartheid rule and it’s notorious ‘bantusans’ policy were allocated approximately 50 000 hectares of land around the royal seat of Weltevrede as the KwaNdebele ethnic ‘homeland’.

Emerging as a major regional power in the middle years of the 19th century, the Ndzundza were finally defeated by the Boers of the Tranvaal Republic. This came about after a long siege of the Ndzundza stronghold at Mapoch’s Caves in 1883, and saw the Ndzundza after a five-year period as indentured laborers. It was notably among the Ndzundza, rather than the Manala, that the cultural institutions generally regarded as definitive of the Ndebele culture were maintained and developed.

 

Capetown, South Africa

We arrived in Capetown 2 nights ago. The first night our hotel was in a dangerous area so we moved the next day to a much safer part of town. There were hundreds of refugees lining up for there working papers and our tour guide did not feel comfortable. We are now in the center of the city and we can walk around in small groups. We went to several museums and the outdoor market but you must be very careful and watch your belongings and keep your guard up. A boy did attempt to take my backback but luckily I was wearing it under a pashmina and it was stuck to my body. A close one! but made me even more aware and cautious. We went to the theater last night and I have a million more things to write about but my time at the internet cafe is very limited since we are always on the go. The tour has been exhausting but ending soon and I will be happy to settle in Port Elizabeth and start working on my art and teaching. Finding food that I like in Capetown has been much more successful than anywhere else so I feel less hungry. I have taken about 200 pictures along the way and will post them soon! I have some emails to answer quickly and then I am off to meet the group for more touring. Seeing the countryside has been very inspiring although the living conditions of the people have been somewhat shocking. It’s been a lot to take in over a short period of time. I most likely will post again when we get back to PE on Monday. Until then……

I’ve arrived….

I am finally in Port Elizabeth and it was quite an exciting and tiring journey. Sadly, there is no internet access at the apartments where we are staying so my hopes to blog might be infrequent. As far as what I have seen so far….no pollution! The air and sky seem very clean and clear. I am at an internet cafe in a shopping complex not far from where we are staying. I was dropped of and will be picked up since it is becoming evening and we are not supposed to go out at night. We decided to take our trip of excursions starting on Monday since some of the other women have not yet arrived. I am so jet lagged and hungry so hopefully rest and food will be something attainable in the next few hours. Hopefully, I will be writing again very soon. Oh, I’ve seen the Indian Ocean and it is such a beautiful landscape. Our lodgings are a 2 minute walk to the beach and I can see it from the window of our room. Really beautiful!

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I leave tonight for Port Elizabeth. I will be there for 5 weeks of teaching local high school students puppetry and doll making and studying South African arts and culture. I arrive sometime on the 5th so I have a long but, exciting journey ahead of me. This is the furthest I’ve been from home since living in Hawaii 4 years ago. According to my accomodations website, I will have internet access so, I will be blogging when I can and posting pictures to my Flickr page. The first week, I will be taking excursions around the eastern cape. It is winter in Africa so the temperature is around 60 degrees during the day and 40 degrees at night. I have been looking forward to this trip for months although, I will miss everyone while I am gone. Well, next time I post, I will be on the other side of the world. Goodbye for now!

Great Small Works International Toy Theater Festival

St. Ann’s Warehouse, May 31, 2008

University of Majd, Peter Schumann (Glover, Vermont)

An adaptation for Toy Theater of a work originally created as seven large latex paintings on lightweight fabric surrounded by 80 small flower paintings.

Peter Schumann is director and founder of Bread and Puppet Theater, which has been presenting stories of hope, struggle and protest for the past 40 years. After interviewing him in on the phone in April, I met him the last night of the festival. He was part of the program that night and he signed my research paper on Bread and Puppet before performing, University of Majd. He asked me “what grade I received for my paper?”  I told him,  ”an A.” He said, he “usually only signs B papers but would make an exception.” He performed wearing paper wings. The feathers were made of drawings of dead bodies. 

Bread and Puppet, Blackbirds 2004

 

Charter School at Tweed Probed for Test Tampering

By ELIZABETH GREEN, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 2, 2008

 

Department of Citywide Administrative Services: The Tweed Courthouse.

The city’s Department of Education is investigating a charter school housed in its own headquarters building following an allegation that student scores on a state test were doctored. The person accused of test-tampering, Stephanie Clagnaz, left abruptly as Ross Global Academy’s principal in the middle of May. She is at least the fifth head of school to leave Ross Global since it was founded two years ago. The concerns follow two years of trouble.

Saying working conditions were chaotic, many teachers quit and many were fired in the middle of the last school year, and nearly all staff members chose not to return to the school this year. Before Ms. Clagnaz’s abrupt departure in May, eight staff members had left by the middle of this school year, a school official said.

At least four school heads served and left before Ms. Clagnaz. One resigned before the school even opened. Another who was hired after an extensive search served less than 60 days but was paid nearly $54,000, a department investigation found.

Eight staff members departed at the middle of this school year, including two main teachers; four associate teachers, and two language teachers, a member of the board of directors, Nicolas Combemale, said.

The Roman sculptures seem symbolic of the damage done: Their smooth, alabaster-white torsos have been chipped, exposing areas of brown base.A former teacher, Heather Dallas, said the children had broken the sculptures. “They would throw things on them, they would hang on them, they would take crayons and actually color on them,” she said. “They broke off the finger, they broke off the penis — whatever would cross a fifth- or sixth-graders’ mind to do with a naked statue in their room.”

 

Dream Box

A magical box, filled with dream-like paper and a beautiful pen.  A special place to record your dreams by transcribing what happened by creating a poem or drawing a picture. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/misslaurenpurcell/

Camille Claudel Retrospective opening at Paris’s Musee Rodin

Camille Claudel was born into a conservative provincial French family at the end of the 19th century, she joined Auguste Rodin’s Paris workshop in 1884, at the age of 20. Soon she was lending her hand to such monumental works as The Burghers of Calais and showing her sculptures in salons. Her first large scale piece, a work of plaster called Sakountala, depiciting a reunited couple won a mention is the 1888 Salon des Artistes Francais.

Famously, Claudel also became Rodin’s lover. The affair lasted some ten years after which she gradually sank into paranoia, destroying a lot of her own work. She was eventually committed to a mental institution, where she spent the last 30 years of her life.

This month, Paris’s Musee Rodin opens its first extensive Claudel retrospective, exhibiting some 80 sculptures, as well as drawings, letters and photographs. “I would like people to be able to forget Rodin and to forget her tragic destiny,” says curator Aline Magnein. “She was a recognized, collected artist, and it is time to let her work speak for itself.”