Ziying Zhao serves as a jury member for several music competitions, including the International Youth Music Competition, 21st Century Talents Music Competition, Rocky Mountain Music Competition, Red Maple Music Competition, Royal Sound Music Competition, Charleston International Music Competition, and the “德润音才筑梦未来” Music Exhibition (a Chinese guqin National Music Competition). In 2023, she showcased her solo Guqin concert in Houston. Her talent has led to invitations to perform the guqin at renowned venues such as the Seattle Center, University of Washington, Texas A&M University, Asian & Pacific Culture Center, California WorldFest, and other esteemed organizations. Additionally, she has delivered guqin presentations at numerous universities and schools.

The guqin, an ancient and enigmatic musical instrument with a history spanning over 4,000 years, is considered one of the quintessential representations of traditional Chinese culture. Many guqin compositions date back hundreds or even thousands of years, and the revered Chinese philosopher and educator Confucius used the guqin as a teaching tool for his students. Ziying Zhao aspires to introduce this ancient musical heritage to modern society, sharing the timeless melodies of millennia past with the world.

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Steph Rue previously participated in ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program in 2019, as an apprentice to master artist Youngmin Lee in the craft of bojagi, or Korean wrapping cloths.

Living Cultures Grant

2023

Professional Hanji Studio

Funding will support materials for Rue’s hanji studio dedicated to production,  demonstration, and teaching hanji and related crafts in her local community.

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About the Organization

Culture through Cloth is an evolving traditional art and community design studio focused on promoting the making, wearing, and learning of HMong (Hmong and Mong) culture through cloth. They provide educational workshops and cultural goods designed to create more places and spaces for HMong people. Paj ntaub circle sessions directly engage elder artisans, investing in their leadership and creative capabilities to revitalize their textile skills and address intergenerational barriers to accessing HMong knowledge. The studio’s founder, Pachia Lucy Vang, is a paj ntaub maker and educator who explores concepts of indigeneity, diaspora, and belonging through an interdisciplinary practice in fiber arts, design, and curation. Her work is informed by her experiences as a Hmong-American navigating culture, art, trauma, and society with a pluriversal imagination that speaks from HMong-centered knowledge.

Pachia Lucy Vang and Lu Lee introduce HMong needlework, 2022

Living Cultures Grant

2024

Paj Ntaub Circles

Culture through Cloth will host monthly Paj Ntaub Circles at the HOPE Center in Sacramento, CA. These circles will provide time and space for community members to make paj ntaub or HMong “flower cloth.” Funds support honorariums for cultural bearers, administrative costs, location fees, and materials for participants.

2023

Paj Ntaub Circles

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I grew up with this tradition, and it means almost everything to me.” – Marjan Vahdat

Marjan Vahdat began learning Persian traditional singing when she was eight years old, in Tehran, Iran, with Pari Maleki. Later, she continued her training with Mehdi Fallah and Sohrab Roshan; took master classes in regional music with Iranian master singer Sima Bina; studied setar with Massod Shoari; and learned piano with Minoo Mohebi. Overall, her musical training spanned thirteen intense years. Persian traditional singing has affected many of Vahdat’s major decisions, including migrating from her homeland, where, since 1979, female singers have not been allowed to perform before a mixed audience. She aims to continue creating traditionally rooted music and singing, by which she identifies herself.

Marjan Vahdat sings “Rooted in You,” from the album “Blue Fields,” in Sweden, 2013.

Living Cultures Grant Program

2023

“Home is Where My Voice Is”

Marjan Vahdat received ACTA funding to create an acapella Persian music album, which will be her second album released in exile from Iran.

Apprenticeship Program

2023

Persian Traditional Radif Singing
with apprentice Heranoosh Talebzadeh

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Moises Mauricio Mejia began working on drums over twenty years ago, honing his technique after learning to construct peg drums from Jaime Lemus, an Aztec dance teacher from Sacramento. He also gained secondary insight from another teacher: Benjamin Ignacio, from Guerrero, Mexico. Drumming is one of the main foundations of the Aztec dance tradition, and the drum itself is the heartbeat and center of prayer. For Mejia, his work is a source of pride; he carries the identity and discipline of a Native dancer and drummer wherever he goes. He has taught these traditions to his children and plans to share them with his grandchildren when the time comes.

 

Apprenticeship Program

2022

Aztec Peg-drum Making
with apprentice David Gerardo Partida

 

Mejia will teach David Gerardo Partida to create a peg drum from scratch: what types of wood and supplemental materials (such as tools and skin) are needed; where to find them; and the proper, sustainable techniques for assembling them. Partida will also learn to remove a drum’s skin from its pegs and replace it, a technique which elongates the instrument’s lifespan.

 

 

 

 

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After seven years of facilitating traditional arts programming in California prisons, we developed two sister programs and accompanying workbooks in 2021: Traditional Arts as Restorative Justice and Traditional Arts as Healing from Trauma.

The two workbooks document dozens of lessons from 10 different artists that have grown out of this history of work, but with an intentional focus on how the traditional arts can create pathways towards healing from trauma and restoration. They were created specifically as a way to deliver curriculum remotely during COVID, and include spaces that invite students to write responses, planting seeds of personal and community restoration and healing on both physical and spiritual levels.

Flip through the two workbooks below, or sign up to receive a free download link for both publications!

Después de siete años de facilitar la programación de artes tradicionales en las cárceles de California, desarrollamos dos programas hermanos y los libros de trabajo que los acompañan en 2021: Artes tradicionales como justicia restaurativa y Artes tradicionales como sanación del trauma.

Los dos libros de trabajo documentan docenas de lecciones de 10 artistas diferentes que han surgido de esta historia de trabajo, pero con un enfoque intencional en cómo las artes tradicionales pueden crear caminos hacia la sanación del trauma y la restauración. Se crearon específicamente para entregar currículo de manera remota durante COVID, e incluyen espacios que invitan a lxs estudiantes a escribir respuestas, sembrando semillas de restauración y sanación personal y comunitaria tanto a nivel físico como espiritual.

¡Hojee los dos libros de trabajo a continuación o regístrese para recibir un enlace de descarga gratuita para ambas publicaciones! (disponible solo en inglés)

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The Hmong Youth and Parents United (HYPU) was originally founded in 2008 in order to teach the Hmong language and culture to students. It is one of the few existing non-profit organizations in Sacramento that is largely volunteer based and committed to serving underserved communities, in particular Hmong students and parents. HYPU’s vision is to empower underserved communities by providing and promoting educational, social and economic opportunities to underserved communities in the greater Sacramento region.
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The scope of work and capacity of HYPU has grown in the years of its operation. HYPU’s executive team, advisors, members at large, liaison, and volunteers are all passionate individuals who come from every direction of life. They have in-depth experience working for and with the Hmong community as well as other underserved community and have engaged in assessments that allow for them to identify and understand the needs of the Hmong community. HYPU is composed of strong-will individuals with prodigious commitment to serve the Hmong community.

HYPU has created a successful youth summer camp (the Hmong Enrichment Summer camp for students in K-12 grades), the Heights Dance program and offered community classes. Through the combined efforts of these endeavors, HYPU has successfully engaged its community through classes on language, various art forms such as pat ntaub (embroidery), and other cultural traditions like Hmong dancing.

Living Cultures Grant

2020

Performing Arts and Culture Program

In 2020 Hmong Youth and Parents United received a Living Cultures Grant from ACTA to create the Performing Arts and Culture Program, an eight-week program which will allow community members in Sacramento to continue to learn about various Hmong cultural arts and participate in performances as well. Classes in this program will center around dance, folk singing, language, and other cultural traditions and will be offered to students of all ages. Some courses will highlight endangered cultural traditions, such as the folksinging art of Kwv Txhiaj, in an effort to ensure their preservation. Courses will explore the historical background of these traditions as well as how they are practiced today. In addition, the program plans to document the various performing arts of the Hmong through audio and video recordings to be used as future resources.

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Danza Azteca group Ocelotecame started 8 years ago in Lincoln, where the Latino/a/x community lacked positive representation. Many members have been active in Danza for over 20 years. They are part of the Oaxaca Project, which is a project of Northern California Danza groups reaching out to artists and Danza groups in Oaxaca, Mexico. They were part of the first group to travel to and develop a working relationship in Oaxaca where we share and support one another in keeping traditions alive through workshops, performances and teachings to benefit both cities. The group also hosts a local educational event that helps share the culture of their ancestors and enrich the lives of those who witness and participate in it. This is the event that happens every September and is held in Lincolns oldest and biggest park for the community to see.

Living Cultures Grant

2020

Ocelotecame received ACTA’s Living Cultures grant to support a gathering of regional Aztecan dance groups to celebrate the fall harvest through traditional music, traditional dance, traditional regalia and traditional food. This ceremony will be held in Lincoln’s oldest and largest park. It will be free and open for all community members to come experience.

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As part of the Apprenticeship Program, ACTA staff members visit each and every artist pair. The fieldwork-based site visits for 2019 began in May; over these last several months, Apprenticeship Program Manager Jennifer Joy Jameson, Living Cultures Grants Program Manager Julián Antonio Carrillo, Digital Media Specialist Shweta Saraswat, and Executive Director Amy Kitchener have visited artists from San Diego County to the Central Valley to the Bay Area to Humboldt County in the far north of California.

ACTA staff members cherish these mid-point site visits as an opportunity to learn about the impact of the Apprenticeship program firsthand. Artists open up their homes and studios to us and share with us the intimate process of one-on-one learning. During a site visit, we spend quality time with the artists, offer an affirming word, and answer any questions they may have about the Apprenticeship process. We observe and document their work in-process, often witnessing the nuance and intricacies of pedagogy and transmission between master/mentoring artist and apprentice. We also have the pleasure of video recording an interview with them, touching on key questions of histories, aesthetics, transmission, and the future of these art forms in California. More than anything, we seek to listen and learn, meeting the artists where they are, offering any support they need, and building lasting trust and rapport.

Just a few of the highlights from this year’s site visits include:

Youngmin Lee and Stephanie Rue

Korean Bojagi
Pleasanton and Sacramento, CA

Master textile artist Youngmin Lee of Pleasanton (outside of Oakland) mentored Stephanie Rue of Sacramento in an apprenticeship focused on Korean bojagi textiles. Bojagi are traditional, handmade wrapping cloths often resembling pieced quilt tops, but coming from a distinct Korean cultural tradition. The wrapping cloths are hand-sewn with a number of particular types of stitches and often serve to wrap special occasion gifts that can be admired as an additional keepsake or wall-hanging, or then be repurposed as wrapping for another gift.

Youngmin, born in Seoul, Korea, originally studied garment history and fashion design. But after she immigrated to California, she found herself drawn more and more to the cultural textile work she observed the women in her family practicing in her youth. She has since become a well-respected source on bojagi in America, teaching regular classes and workshops around the Bay Area in the form and leading tours across Seoul that focus on Korean textile practice.

Youngmin’s apprentice, Steph, a Korean-American woman born in California, comes from a book arts and papermaking background, and is skilled in Eastern forms of paper making in particular. With new training from Youngmin, she has developed an extraordinary body of work blending these forms into bojagi textiles made of her own hand-made paper, as well as books made with bojagi stitching and piecing techniques. The pair’s culminating exhibition, From Fabric to Paper, opened at the Korean Consulate Gallery in San Francisco on September 30, 2019, and will run until January 3, 2020.

Luis Torres and Arthur Torres

Bolivian and Andean Music
Los Angeles, CA

Master artist Luis Torres of Panorama City works with his son and apprentice Arthur Torres in the tradition of Bolivian and Andean music (music of the Andes region of South America). Torres, a retired LAPD officer and first-generation Angeleno born of Bolivian parents, has been studying Bolivian traditional music since the age of 11, when he was introduced to master charango player Ernesto Cavour. Luis continued to travel to Bolivia for the summers where he studied under Cavour and others to further develop his practice in the charango (a 10-stringed acoustic instrument), the zampoña (panpipe), and the tarka (woodwind instrument). Later, in Los Angeles County, he founded the Andean music ensemble KIYARUNA, which performs regularly in Southern California-based South American festivities like Bolivian Independence Day.

As Luis’ son, Arthur, has grown older, Luis has trained him in the basics of Andean and Bolivian music. Arthur grew up participating in Andean festivals and processions in Southern California. During their apprenticeship, Arthur has been honing his practice in the zampoña and in the fast strumming techniques (the Repique and Tremelo) of the charango. Arthur has also been deepening his understanding of the social context of this music, even learning to sing in Quechua, an indigenous language of the Andes.

Soumya Tilak and Vibha Raju

South Indian Bharatanatyam Dance
San Jose, CA

Bharatanatyam dancer and teacher Soumya Tilak is training 15-year-old apprentice Vibha Raju in Bharatanatyam, a classical dance from South India. In particular, Soumya is teaching Vibha three jathiswarams, a particular piece of Bharatanatyam’s technical dance repertoire that includes long sequences of rhythmic footwork and abstract movement set to the recitation of rhythmic compositions (jathi) and the singing of musical notes (swara). According to Soumya, the practice of jathiswaram is dwindling in the diasporic Bharatanatyam field, perhaps because of the extreme level of rhythmic and physical rigor these compositions entail.

Soumya is also teaching Vibha how to notate the jathiswaram compositions using a new written notation system called Natyagraphy, developed by Soumya’s guru Dr. Vijay Madhavan in Chennai, India. Following in the tradition of Laban and Benesh notation, Natyagraphy allows the dancers to write down not only musical patterns, but also their accompanying movements through an original alphabet of lines, curves, and dots.

Soumya was born in Dubai before her family moved to Chennai to further Soumya’s dance training. She eventually settled in California in 2007 and opened her own Bharatanatyam training program while still maintaining an international career as a solo artist. Soumya specializes in the Vazhuvoor style of Bharatanatyam, a lively and lilting style of dance that is new to Vibha, who came under Soumya’s guidance in the last few years after extensive training with other teachers.

All photos by ACTA staff.

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