Annual Program/Fundraising Event

2011, Eat Your Heritage Tour and 20th Anniversary Gala Event



Paul Kerner, Peter Duenas, Lois Ellen Frank, Walter Whitewater and Geoffrey Perez at interpretive dinner event

In late September 2011, the Council launched the Eat Your Heritage tour as part of the larger project I Tano yan I Tasi, Land and Sea - Ecological Literacy on the US Pacific Island of Guam.  The weeklong tour kicked off with the Council's 4th Annual Y Tinaotao 5k Run, followed by a series of cooking presentations at select schools, a lecture, and concluding with an interpretive dinner presentation in celebration of the Council's 20th anniversary. As part of the project, the Council brought to Guam Native American chefs Lois Ellen Frank, PhD and Walter Whitewater. Dr. Frank is a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based chef, author, Native foods historian and photographer. Her book, Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations was the first Native American book to win the James Beard Award.


> From September 25 through October 1, the Council hosted school visits, cooking demonstrations and other presentations with Dr. Frank and Chef Whitewater.  A total of eight school presentations took place that included Price Elementary School, Simon Sanchez High School, George Washington High School and Guam Community College.  The Council also presented a community lecture by Dr. Frank titled Seeds of Health: the Return to the Ancestral Diet on Tuesday, September 27 at Government House with a diverse audience of Chamorro language teachers, college students, humanities scholars and farmers.

 

The two chefs concluded the weeklong tour by teaming up with award-winning local chefs Peter Duenas of Meskla Chamoru Fusion Restaurant, Geoffrey Perez of Proa Restaurant, Josef Budde of the Hyatt and Paul Kerner from the Guam Community College Culinary Arts program, for the Eat Your Heritage interpretive cooking event held on October 1 at the Hyatt Regency Guam. Another important partner included the Guam Farmers Cooperative. The interpretive dinner incorporated a menu featuring Native American and local foods and highlighted Guam’s natural resources and unique cultural heritage.


Through a variety of partnerships with local businesses, organizations and individuals in the community, the Council was able to carryout important programs that focused on the Native American foods movement, and the cultural, spiritual, and physical connections between our island environment and community for health and wellness.




Click here to view the photos from the tour

 

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2009, Black Grace Gala Performance


In March 2009, the Guam Humanities Council brought to Guam Black Grace, New Zealand’s leading contemporary dance group.  The tour provided an exciting opportunity for our island community, especially for our middle, high school and college students, to highlight our connections as Pacific peoples, as well as to promote our unique culture and identity in a time of anticipated change and transformation. 


The Council coordinated and hosted a weeklong series of workshops and performances conducted by Black Grace with several local dance groups, students from various public schools, the University of Guam, the island’s southern community, and the larger public. A film and discussion series titled, Dance and Identity, led up to the tour and focused on larger issues of identity and authenticity as expressed in performance arts.


The Guam premiere of the documentary, Black Grace: From Cannon’s Creek to Jacob’s Pillow, followed by a performance by Black Grace, was also part of the tour. This film follows Black Grace's journey from Cannon's Creek, a small town outside of Wellington, New Zealand to the prestigious Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the oldest one of its kind in North America. A gala event on Saturday, April 4, 2009 featured performances by Black Grace and a special appearance by a select group of workshop participants at the Sheraton Laguna Guam Resort.


Black Grace founder and Artistic Director Neil Ieremia is in the vanguard of New Zealand’s most accomplished choreographers and, through his vision, imbues Black Grace with an explosive mix of rhythm, spirit and energy. In recognition of his considerable achievements, Neil was the recipient of the 2005 Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award for outstanding creative achievement and his contribution to the Arts in New Zealand. Over the past decade, Neil has also choreographed work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Opera New Zealand, New Zealand Wearable Arts, the New Zealand School of Dance, and the Rotterdam Dance Academy.

Black Grace has held a unique position on the world stage for over 10 years. Fusing Pacific and contemporary dance in an extraordinary and dynamic form, Black Grace has become internationally renowned for its artistry, creative excellence and innovation, while also becoming the world’s leading exponent of Pacific contemporary dance.

Black Grace has toured extensively throughout New Zealand and internationally to critical acclaim. In 2005, the company celebrated its tenth anniversary and performed to sell-out seasons in Auckland, followed by an extensive tour of the US and Mexico. During this time, the company performed a return season at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, debuted on New York’s 42nd Street for a four-week season, and performed at Mexico’s renowned Cervantino Festival. Black Grace also performed at Tourism New Zealand’s ‘100% Pure’ event in Sydney, at the Aichi World Expo and for the New Zealand Embassy at the Tram Theatre in Tokyo.

Most recently, Black Grace enjoyed a successful 2008 tour of North America and Canada followed by a sold out season at the Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia.

 

 

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2007, Envisioning the Pacific


 
 

GHC 16th Anniversary Celebration, Envisioning the Pacific


The Council celebrated its 16th anniversary by presenting Envisioning the Pacific, a series of three events that focused on the use of visual media and technology to document and effectively communicate cultural experience.  Envisioning the Pacific also highlighted the diverse contributions of the Council and its community partners to provide quality humanities programs for the people of Guam. 


The first series event titled From L. A. to Guam: Alex Muñoz, Chamorro Filmmaker took place on Thursday, September 13, 2007, at the Outrigger Guam Resort.  Alex Muñoz, a California-based Chamorro filmmaker and Sundance Fellow, presented a number of short films and scenes from his latest projects, and led a discussion with audience members.  Alex co-wrote and directed Return of our Elder Hurao, an impressionistic short about a Chamorro chief who resisted Spanish colonialism.  This film has been screened widely around the nation and on PBS.  Alex also produced Prutehei Hao, a safe sex video project, while working with at-risk youth in Guam. A scene from his awarding winning documentary film, Lil’ Scrappy Boy was screened during the event. 


 Muñoz also partnered with the Council through an NEH We the People grant to produce a short film on Camp Roxas, a Filipino laborer camp established in southern Guam after World War II. The film was part of a larger Council project that also included an interpretive photo exhibition, entitled, Remembering Camp Roxas: The History of Filipino Americans in Guam, which documents the lives and experiences of these initial Filipino immigrants to Guam following World War II.


The second event, Micronesia Sound Waves, took place on October 18, 2007 at the Westin Resort and was built off of the Council’s Guam tour of New Harmonies! Celebrating American Roots Music, a Smithsonian Institution exhibition. The evening celebrated the evolution of our “island roots” music with notable contemporary artists from the region including Patrick Palomo, Maria Yatar, Parker Yobei, and the band, Last Minute.  These artists performed and discussed their original jazz, folk and reggae pieces.  Their musical performances centered on themes of legends, history, cultural identity, diversity, inequality, and island life.   


The final event in the series, Ekungok yan Atan, Listen and Look: Stories for Guam, was held on Thursday, November 29, 2007 at the Outrigger Resort Guam.  Ekungok yan Atan focused on modern day storytelling as a dynamic and relevant means of cultural expression. Through a variety of visual media, artistic renderings and dramatic performance, audiences experienced storytelling through Guam’s different eras and with the integration of modern and ancient genres of oral traditions. Featured storytellers included Melvin Won Pat Borja, Peter Onedera, Antonia Castro, Balthazar Aguon, and Jay Baza Pascua.  The evening concluded with the premiere of the video vignette, I Tinituhon: Puntan yan Fu’una, about Guam’s creation story.  The vignette is featured on Guampedia, a long-term online encyclopedia project of the Council.


 

 

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2006, Writing the Pacific, Albert Wendt Comes to Guam Gala Presentation


GHC 15th Anniversary Celebration—Writing the Pacific: Albert Wendt Comes to Guam    

In line with the Council’s ongoing mission to provide quality humanities programs to Guam residents, in 2006 the Council was delighted to bring the internationally acclaimed Samoan novelist, poet and scholar Albert Wendt to Guam to celebrate our 15th anniversary with Writing the Pacific.  Professor Wendt, known as the Godfather of Pacific Literature, is the author of seven novels, three collections of short stories, four volumes of poetry and a play. A prolific writer, he has also edited numerous Pacific literature anthologies. One of these collections, Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English was the first anthology of indigenous Polynesian poetry in English edited by Polynesians, winning the reference and anthology category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2004. 

Professor Wendt’s earliest novel, Sons for the Return Home, was developed and released as a major motion picture; his novel Leaves of the Banyan Tree won the New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year award. His landmark work, The Mango’s Kiss, which took 16 years to complete, received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2005.  His play, The Songmaker’s Chair, was first performed in New Zealand by the Auckland Theatre Company in 2003, and was featured at the First Auckland International Arts Festival.  The Songmaker’s Chair also had a successful run at the Kumu Kahua Theatre in downtown Honolulu. Most recently, Professor Wendt won the 2010 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for the Asia and Pacific Region for his latest novel, The Adventures of Vela.

Professor Wendt was the Citizen’s Chair and Distinguished Writer in Residence of the English Department at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa from 2004-08. He is also an emeritus professor of New Zealand and Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland where he taught from 1988-2006.  Born in Apia, Western Samoa of the aiga Sa-Tuala, he has lived and worked in Fiji and New Zealand/Aotearoa as both an educator and a writer.  He was awarded Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2000.  More recently, Professor Wendt was awarded New Zealand’s Senior Pacific Islands Artist’s Award (2003), Japan’s Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture (2004), and an honorary Doctor of Literature from Victoria University in 2005. Following his return from Hawai’i and retirement from the University of Auckland he is writing and painting full-time in New Zealand/Aotearoa.

During his five-day visit to Guam, Professor Wendt, accompanied by Reina Whaitiri, a Maori writer and scholar, performed readings of his work to the community, and was the main presenter at a writers gathering at the University of Guam.  He was the honored guest at the Guam premiere of the New Zealand documentary film The New Oceania, which examines his life and work.  The premiere was followed by discussions with Professor Wendt about his work and the film. Professor Wendt also visited several high school English classes, and spoke to members of the International Reading Association.  Finally, he was the featured speaker at the Council’s gala anniversary dinner held September 23rd at the Westin Resort Guam, accompanied by readings from contemporary Chamorro and other Micronesian writers.

“We were thrilled and honored to bring this Pacific literary legend to Guam,” states Kimberlee Kihleng, the Council’s executive director. “Professor Wendt is a strong supporter of indigenous rights and indigenous writers in the Pacific and he thoroughly enjoyed meeting and interacting with the people of Guam, and particularly with Chamorro and Micronesian writers and scholars.”

The Guam Humanities Council produced a commemorative booklet in celebration of our 15th anniversary, Writing the Pacific.  Professor Wendt’s visit marked a new direction for the Council, building new connections and encouraging dialogue between the peoples of Guam and Micronesia, and the larger Pacific region.


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