BorderLore interviews TMY tradition bearer Bonyang Michaels, with translation assistance from her daughter, Vil Rosales. Bonyang Michaels is a weaver from Laos, one of more than 100 folk artists who will demonstrate their craft in the Pima County Courthouse Courtyard at TMY. B: How long have you been coming to share your work at Tucson Meet ... [Continue Reading]
Threads of Culture
Dancing for Ancestors: Tucson’s Taiko Drummers Return to Traditional Roots
Karen Falkenstrom loves to bang on a taiko drum. As the artistic director of the Japanese ensemble drumming group Odaiko Sonora, she gets to do it often, bringing the experience to youth and community as a form of celebration and spectacle. “We can have a huge impact on community... because we’re so loud,” she said with a laugh. Indeed, ... [Continue Reading]
An Herbalist on Every Corner
John Slattery: Medicinal Plants of the Southwest
John Slattery’s vision of a healthy community is that one that has an herbalist on every corner. “Not because it’s a viable livelihood,” he says, “but because it would be an indication of healthy ecosystem, where knowledge of plants is living and available and practiced.” For now though, Slattery -- an herbalist, ethnobotanist, writer and ... [Continue Reading]
Cultivating Compost and Culture
Tucson Meet Yourself enthusiasts are familiar with an energetic, green-shirted collaborative called the Compost Cats, who annually staff TMY green stations and encourage TMY goers to stash their garbage, recyclables and food scraps sustainably. In past years, supported by the Compost Cat inspiration and expertise, TMY has managed to keep more than ... [Continue Reading]
Field Notes
TMY from a Folklorist’s Eye
Saturday, October 10 in the Presidio: A folklorist focuses unobtrusively on a dance demonstration in progress on the City Hall stage. Something that catches his eye makes him chuckle. His field notes track the experience: Detailing observations on dance steps, audience response, then further interaction about the music. After the applause erupts, ... [Continue Reading]
Greening of Folklife
This year, TMY sustainability efforts resulted in keeping approximately 14,000 pounds of material out of Tucson’s landfills, sending about 6,000 pounds of plastic bottles, cardboard, and aluminum cans to the recycling center and 8,000 pounds of food scraps and paper to San Xavier Co-op Farm where Compost Cats will turn it into compost for our crops ... [Continue Reading]
Candy and Food Justice
Barrio Bici in TMY’s Culture Kitchen
As the attendees leaned closer, Cesar Lopez of Barrio Bici melts the Oaxacan chocolate, adds the cinnamon and pops the amaranth seeds. Full of nutritional value and a staple of pre-Columbian Aztecs often used in religious ceremony, the amaranth, Cesar tells the Culture Kitchen audience, is an ancient grain now being cultivated in the region -- from ... [Continue Reading]
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