Thoughts on co-opting cultural property

Posted this morning to the sca-jml yahoogroup this morning: "Earlier this year, I entered my formal karaginu mo ensemble in the Historical Masquerade at Costume Con 26. As this required a stage appearance, I examined a number of online videos of traditional and classical Japanese dance forms beforehand and copied a gagaku composition onto a blank CD. It was not until the tech rehearsal that I blocked my "routine." Said routine involved dragging 70 yards of fabric around the stage for 60 seconds or so, in a manner that would best display the features of the costume. Period.

Imagine my mortification when several people asked me afterward whether I had studied traditional Japanese dance. I told the truth: No, I had not studied nihon buyo (because a few hours with Youtube does not constitute study). I was showing off the costume, not performing a documentable Heian dance routine. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for the compliment, but what you just saw was a complete fabrication.

Yesterday it was my privilege to attend a re-creation of the "Gosechi no Mai," an 8th century dance performed specifically by women of the court for the harvest festival. As I watched the two women from Hara Sho Kai perform, I was intensely aware of the difference between what I did six months ago and what these women were doing. I know now how much I got right. I know now how much I got wrong.

There is no comparison. There cannot be.'"

My observations were prompted by several posts by a relative newcomer who nonetheless keeps volunteering (or being volunteered?) to demonstrate/perform everything from tea ceremony to the latest whim, specifically dancing with a sword.

Her enthusiasm is a truly wonderful thing, but it seems she really has no idea what she is proposing to do or how to begin to go about it.

For the purposes of the masquerade, what I did was appropriate, effective and managed to completely fool several people who may or may not know a thing about nihon buyou. I would not have dreamed of presenting the exact same "routine" at an SCA event. I KNOW I don't know enough.

Why all the fuss?

Saturday night I had a dream about standing in the Wyckoff Deli (a place in New Jersey I have not been to since the 1990s) on a cold, rainy day, waiting in line to place a lunch order. Paul Bettany ("Master and Commander," "The Da Vinci Code,") walked in, came over to me and gave me a huge, somewhat soggy hug. I remember the smell of wet wool pea coat and his bony chin digging into the top of my head. I made fun of the very British way he pronounced pasta fagiola as we waited to be served and tried to decide what to have. "We're in Jersey. It's pasta fazOOL!" Which all goes to prove - what?

As of this evening, it has been confirmed that the person who wants to dance with a sword at an SCA event as a shirabyoshi believes in reincarnation. She claims to have had dreams she believes in, including one in which "I was dancing with a very large curved blade slender and the dance was irregular in beat
but very beautiful." 

I don't know from past lives. This old earth doggie has not personally experienced anything to lead me to believe I've been here before. I've known people who have. If I had all the answers they'd have to pay me more.

Whatever one believes, this woman had a dream that inspired her. There's just one problem. She hasn't done the homework to confirm or refute whether her dream perception is based in historical fact. It's not research. Not yet.

Why does this matter so much? After all, isn't the SCA an assortment of like-minded crackpots to begin with? 

In some ways, yes. However, there are some people who believe that those of us who occupy certain non-Western minority niches should go away and like to finger point and naysay. Those of us in that niche often work very hard to do what we do because it inspires us and we love it just as much as our European brethren. We are so few and yet so visible for our different choice, some of us DO worry about being made to look bad.

This woman has already been made to look bad by a Mistress of the Laurel who helped teach her to make a Genuwine Keemonah that wouldn't pass muster at a Halloween party.

What she does next is up to her. I can only hope....

(On the other hand, the Barbie kumihimo lady over on the Tousando seems like she's very willing to learn - I have thrown her the link to Tangwystl's awesome historical dolls. )

Paging sasha_khan

There's an article on Gobekli Tepe in this month's Smithsonian Magazine:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/gobekli-tepe.html