Dear Dina and Enas,
Thank you for stopping by to take a look at this. The first idea for this initiative called Discover the World was for a curricular approach, using the arts as a way of bringing together various disciplines from the performing arts, to literature, to history, to architecture/engineering and any others offered by a university. It’s designed to connect the history of a cultural element through classes and real person contacts within the immediate neighborhood of a university and surrounding city, to the larger global community. The video explanation below is a broad overview to describe the ideas involved for a wider variety of uses. But the communication models that are discussed were specifically designed to be used in an educational setting for community outreach. I’ve been studying the resources at AUC for the past three years and I strongly feel that something like this could be put in place using existing assets (for the most part), and especially with what is happening for the Tahrir Cultural Center. This initiative could connect the TCC to AUC curricular programs and create a unified approach from classes to real life experiences, and then take to a much larger global audience.
Thank you again for your time so far.
Discover the World
(This is the basic script from the video)
This is the Discover the World project- a way of using arts and culture to connect people across the planet. It’s the initial idea that could be a centralized place that encompasses other cultural projects.
Any people or civilization can best be understood by looking at how they express themselves in their art and culture. For us to know where we will go as a global community, we must start to understand how where we come from, where we are now, and how the possibilities for the future are all interconnected. All of this can be seen in the languages of our collective cultures. This project will show a global audience how to read these languages, while entertaining them in unique ways, and hopefully in the end allow people’s view of the world and what’s possible to open up a little more.
It begins with our shared history and explores of the origins of the visual arts, music, dance, storytelling, sport, food and our created personal environment (what architecture and fashion say about a people). These seven cultural categories begin to show the languages all cultures are built on.
From there the earth is looked at in 7-9 regions, based only on music tuning systems and scales, and each of these regions is looked at through the lens of the cultural areas. Following human migration and the rise of civilizations, the areas of Africa, the Middle East, India, Eastern Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceana, Europe, Central Asia though the Americas can be explored.
The audience will be introduced to representatives of each region's cultural areas and shown their insights. Through interviews, demonstrations and performances, creative customs and traditions will be explored in new ways and look at the past, present and possible futures. Each region will be part arts journey, part sports program, part cooking show, part live performance and music concert. The audience will be able to watch virtuosos in their field along with regular people as they discuss, perform or create. It's likely that numerous cultural traditions could be viewed for the first time by a global audience.
The most unique thing this project can offer is a twist to all of this. From this global network we can take one cultural element and twist it with something else, taking its contemporary form then deliberately combining different styles from other areas. These hybrids could be nearly any combination from across multiple global communities. There will be rare opportunities to create one-of-a-kind hybrids, then help create and guide new cultural blends.
By looking at the world's arts and culture using this method of chronicling, experiencing contemporary styles, and contemplating future expectations, this project allows people from all over the globe to understand and celebrate their own culture, as well as those that are different from theirs.