Art: Bridging Differences

Explore art and music from around the world! In Senegal, watch Cheikh’s recite a poem about the slave house and a master Kora player at work, enjoy a church choir and street musicians in South Africa, and celebrate Janelle’s Navajo musical traditions in Albuquerque New Mexico.

Like our teens’ impromptu musical example, with deliberate effort, art can be a powerful tool to bridge differences between groups engaged in intense and sometimes violent conflict.

• The Way Home is a documentary produced by The World Trust to look at issues of race as they intersects with gender, class and sexual orientation. The film follows eight groups of women: Native American, African-American, Latino, Jewish, Asian, Arab, European and multiracial. The 64 women appearing in the film represent different ages, classes, education levels, religions and sexual orientation. In 1998 the film was shown in workshops around the country as an opening to discussions about racism and gender. With this film, the World Trust hopes to "use video as a catalyst for public dialogue" and "to reveal and examine those fears that keep us apart."
  
  http://www.earthlysites.com/antiracism/thewayhome/
  OR http://www.earthlysites.com/antiracism/thewayhome/events.htm]

• Via Dolorosa is a Broadway play based on interviews conducted by David Hare of Israelis and Palestinians during his trip to the Middle East. It is the story of one man’s journal from being spiritually apathetic to finding the meaning of God through the tensions of the religious struggles around him. When the show played in the Washington, D.C. area, it was followed by a Peace Café that featured a "menu" of topics to inspire informal dialogue about the production, encouraging those with opposing viewpoints to open their minds and hearts.
  
  http://peacenow.org/events/viadolorosa.html