Russia! (Wednesday, May 12)
I was scheduled to speak that evening so I decided to relax and just enjoy being in Moscow again. I had first visited Moscow in 2003, when I produced a one-woman show for Navajo fashion designer Virginia Yazzie Ballenger with the US embassy. It was exciting visit and a great show but it didn’t leave much time for experiencing the city. This time, I just walked around the city near the guest house where I was staying, enjoying the sights and the sounds, the beauty of the buildings and churches outlined against the clear blue sky. What a pleasure!
I also had the opportunity to meet Joe Merante at last. He’s the Executive Director of the Humpty Dumpty Institute in New York, and we had worked together to bring Navajo fluteplayer Andrew Thomas to Pakistan a few years back. It was a most enjoyable meeting, learning about his work, and sharing ideas–and tasting Siberian food for the first time.
And that evening was my talk at the American Center, “International Cultural Marketing: American Indians and World Markets”–many thanks to Amara Telleen, the Center’s director and her very able assistant, Irina Chernenkaya, for arranging my talk and making my visit such a good experience.
Afterwards I met with Namgar, a very exciting Buryat singer, and her husband and a friend who acted as translator. We had wanted to explore ways in which we could work together–and created the outline for a concert with the working title, Strong Women, which will feature Indigenous women from the US, Canada, Sweden and Namgar. We all had the feeling of being present at the creation of something very exciting–stay tuned!
May 27th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Gordon, looking great!