The Magic Mirror of Life

Magic Mirror of Life
Working under the direction of artist and composer, Philip Blackburn and arts educator, Ryan Varley, students at Achieve Program in Brooklyn Park created this camera obscura, kanga cloths and sound composition. Together they welcome Shangilia Youth Choir of Kenya to the Twin Cities by sending heartfelt messages of courage and wisdom back and forth.

Traditional Kanga cloths worn by Muslim women in East Africa feature geometric patterns and images along with a proverb or quotation. In a culture that discourages women from speaking their minds openly, these sayings are their voice to the world (rather like a bumper sticker or T-shirt might be to us). Achieve students have made Minnesota Kanga to share some of their private feelings. These texts also form the basis of the 6-minute musical composition—an intercontinental call-and-response—heard inside the tent. Along with African musical instruments and rhythmic games based on students' names, you can hear the traditional Swahili greeting "Habari! Nzuri!" [Hey! Wasup?]

The tent is a camera obscura ["dark room"] which, like the pinhole camera, has ancient origins and is part of the development of painting and photography. A delightfully simple optical phenomenon, it projects a living image onto a screen (in this case a big frame drum that you can play and move). You can be hiding inside the private ritual space of the dark room and observe the moving color image of public life outside, maybe reading the thoughts of the people passing by or sending out messages of compassion.

Thank you to VSA Minnesota for supporting this residency and to JD Steele for recording the Shangilia side of the composition.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• philip
• blackburn
• shangilia
• JD Steele
• Ryan Varley
• achieve
• flint hills
• ordway
• 2010
• camera obscura
• kanga
• nairobi
• VSA Minnesota