18 June 2007

Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship Sees Music as Force for Understanding

Projects to take students to Cambodia, Panama, South Africa, Jerusalem

 

James Collins of Harvard University will make a film on the impact of music programs on South African youth. (Photo courtesy of Harvard Crimson)

James Collins will make a film on the impact of music programs on South African youth. (Photo courtesy of Harvard Crimson)

By Louise Fenner
Staff Writer

Washington -- Four American university students will go overseas to research the music of other cultures and create compact discs (CDs), documentary films or Web sites that explore the power of music as a force for global understanding.

In separate projects, the students will travel to Cambodia, Panama, South Africa and Jerusalem.  While abroad, they will share their experiences on blogs (Web logs), in photographs and video clips on mtvU, the MTV channel for U.S. colleges and universities.

The four are the first winners of the Fulbright-mtvU fellowships, a new partnership between the U.S. Department of State and mtvU, which has 7 million viewers on more than 750 campuses.

“We were looking to develop something that conveyed the power of music to serve as a cause for conversation, dialogue, solid communication,” said Tom Farrell of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which sponsors the various Fulbright fellowship programs.

Farrell, who is deputy assistant secretary for academic programs, said the students’ research “will contribute to our understanding in the cultural field.  Also, the blogs and videocasts they create for the mtvU channel and Web site “can convey to American students, and Americans in general, the value of immersion in other societies.”

Ross Martin, director of programming for mtvU, said the creativity and diversity of the projects show that “students in this country are intensely interested in what’s happening around the world.”  He noted that mtvU has “an extremely eclectic playlist with artists from around the world.”

The 100-plus fellowship applications were judged by experts in academia and the arts, including musicians Fiona Apple, James Mercer of The Shins, Common, and Perry Farrell of Satellite Party.  “We were blown away by the submissions,” Martin told USINFO. 

Larnies Bowen, a graduate of New York University (NYU), will create an audio-visual history on CD of Panamanian reggae and its significance in West Indian-Panamanian culture.  At NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, she designed her own major focusing on national identity and race in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

Bowen said Spanish reggae helped West Indians in Panama maintain their Caribbean culture and also “express their new hybrid identity.”  However, the music “has been largely ignored by North American academia” even though it is the forerunner of reggaeton, a wildly popular mix of reggae, other Caribbean and Latin American music and hip-hop.  Through reggaeton, Panamanian reggae “has exerted an extraordinary influence” on world music, Bowen said.  (See related article.)

Phally Chroy, a master’s degree candidate in film and media at Temple University in Philadelphia, will make a documentary on the rediscovery of the “golden era” of Cambodian music, which was almost wiped out by the Khmer Rouge.  He will present monthly videocasts on mtvU during his research.

Larnies Bowen will research Spanish reggae and West Indian cultural identity in Panama. (Photo courtesy of Larnies Bowen)

Chroy, who is of Cambodian heritage, said he wants his project “to create a greater understanding of the Cambodian people beyond the ‘genocide’ [of the late 1970s], which is all that most people seem to know about.”  His documentary is intended “to spread awareness of the rich cultural history that existed before the Khmer Rouge and to show how future generations are trying to re-salvage what they thought was lost.”

Now in Cambodia for his project, Chroy said in an e-mail message, “people (especially the youth) really love the older music of the era because of the meanings they convey and their relevance in the culture. All the folks I talked to were really excited and wanted to help me in any way they can.”  

James Collins, who graduated from Harvard University in visual and environmental studies, will film a documentary about South African students in impoverished townships around Johannesburg who are being taught music, life skills and AIDS awareness through the Field Band Foundation, a South African nongovernmental organization.  He will also teach percussion.

“Music has been such a guiding force in my life and an inspiration,” Collins said.  “I think [the South African students] may be able to appreciate music even more and see the value of it, and that’s what I’m excited about.”

He will use his mtvU blog to tell American students about the foundation and its work in South African townships, Collins said.  “I also want to educate the mtvU community about South African music.”

Aaron Shneyer will travel to Jerusalem to create a yearlong music program that brings together Israeli and Palestinian students to write and play music together.  A graduate in anthropology from Georgetown University in Washington, Shneyer helped create a multicultural discussion group called Students for Middle East Peace.

“I’ll hopefully put together a really stellar group that can make some great music but also form a close relationship and learn from each other,” he told USINFO. 

Shneyer hopes the students will be able to perform at Palestinian and Israeli schools, and “take the trust and hope and understanding that they’ve formed and spread it.”

His project includes creating a Web site in collaboration with the students.  “It will let them know that their voices are being heard,” he said.

Schneyer said his project “will also put a face to the conflict.  You’ve only seen fighters on TV, you very rarely see musicians or kids.”

For information on State Department-sponsored exchange programs, see Exchanges.state.gov. 

Information about mtvU and the Field Band Foundation is available on their Web sites.