Saussure Theory to Determine the Relationship between Sacred Space and Multicultural Community Node. Case Study: Gereja Ayam, Pasar Baru, Jakarta

Many aspects of the Pasar Baru community were influenced by the mixed ethnicity. Churches, Chinese temples, Sikh temples, and mosques, as well as architectural, gastronomic, and religious institutions, expanded across the Pasar Baru, resulting in a multicultural existence. The goal of this research is to see if there is a link between sacred space and community nodes as a signifier/signified of diversity in a multicultural community in order to enhance sustainable urban life. Also, based on the discovery of similar impacts, see if there is a strong recommendation to use the relationship between religious buildings and multicultural ethnic as a basis to construct a multicultural collaboration space. Pasar Baru and Geraja Ayam served as the case study. The semiotic theory of Ferdinand Saussure is employed as an analytical tool in this work. Gereja Ayam has become an icon of Pasar Baru district. Religious sites and community hubs have a strong association. While liveliness and livability can be improved, the (social) sustainability of tourism must be considered. The collaborative venue, which incorporates multicultural arts and designs, is proposed as a means of bringing those many traits to life and strengthening the concept of “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” to generate income and employment.

Value

Chapter 5 theorizes flexibility in relation to the neoliberal discourse of value through a close reading of the 2013 dance film The Art of Defining Me. Following the 2008 global financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures and budget cuts to the arts, artists had to justify (even more than before) the economic value of their work vis-à-vis their “Unique Selling Point.” While neoliberalism demands that all artists frame their work in economic terms such as cost and profit, multiculturalism layers an added demand on South Asian artists to perform ethnic and racial difference in recognizable and sellable terms. Through the subversive power of satire, the film exposes the neoliberal underpinnings of multicultural arts funding in Britain and brings into sharp focus the economic value of authenticity and exoticism in an increasingly market-driven dance industry that prizes difference insofar as it can be made profitable. Taking a humorous look at the arts funding system in Britain and the complex racialized landscape that British South Asian dance artists must navigate, the film renders visible the absurdity of British multiculturalism and funding demands on South Asian dancers, and the flexible, auto-exoticizing maneuvers they deploy to thrive within it.

Dancing in Oakland and Beyond, 1977–1993

As the longest section, chapter 6 covers sixteen years of the author’s career as dancer, choreographer, dance educator, and arts administrator. During this period, she solidified her reputation in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area as a leader in the growing black dance and multicultural arts movements when she founds the non-profit dance institution Everybody’s Creative Arts Center (ECAC). She assess her development as a dancer-choreographer, discussing some of her key dance works as well as the creation of the center’s resident dance company, CitiCentre Dance Theatre, which was an important contemporary dance company that operated from 1983 to 1988. She also explores her simultaneous adjunct dance position at Stanford University and several of her choreographic and directorial commissions. The chapter articulates how, in 1989, her accumulated artistic and administrative experience culminated in her founding a major national initiative in black dance: Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century. She concludes with how she eventually transitioned from the arts to academia after going to graduate school, and how dance and “writing dancing” are similar.

Dancing in Blackness

Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir explores a black female dancer’s personal journey over four decades across three continents and numerous countries. The author situates herself in the 1960s Black Arts Movement in the S.F. Bay Area, the dynamics of being a black woman dancing in Europe in the late 1960s, and dancing professionally in New York City in the early 1970s, while participating in racial inroads into important arts venues like Lincoln Center. She recounts friendships and collaborations with major artistic figures like Katherine Dunham, Ntozake Shange, Rod Rodgers, Diane McIntyre, Donald McKayle, Dr. Kwabena Nketia, and many others. She explores dancing in Ghana for almost a year, the inspiration for her return to the Oakland Bay Area in the late 1970s to help create the city’s black dance scene while being an adjunct dance lecturer at Stanford University. She also considers how her arts activism helped to engender more cultural equity in the arts nationally. She remembers the 1980s national multicultural arts movement and regional community dance activism, including her own national dance initiative, Black Choreographers Moving Toward the 21st Century. Finally, she ponders her self-reinvention in her 50s into a noted black studies and hip-hop scholar in academia.

‘Multi Is My Culture': Critical Reflections on Multicultural Arts in Tropical Australia

Australia is known as a multicultural country with over 40 percent of its population being either an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. Tropical Australia is unique in its landscapes, psyches and cultures. It is also a place of cultural diversity, with some areas where people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds make up to 15 percent of the population. When people migrate, they bring along their cultures- reflected in language, poetry, music, fine arts and other creative mediums. The settlement process of immigrants in complex and multidimensional. The transplantation of multicultural arts in host society poses challenges and opportunities. This paper explores some of the key issues in multicultural arts in Tropical Australia. Particularly the policy context, recognition and display of multicultural art and role of artists in communities will be examined.

Multicultural Arts and Integrative Medicine: Empowering Refugees in the Healing Process

Refugees are people who move involuntarily from their country of residence often witnessing disasters, wars and the deaths of immediate family members prior to fleeing. In each of these instances, refugees experience traumatic situations that provoke strong reactions and emotions. This is often exacerbated by difficult refugee processing systems, detention and waiting in refugee camps, all of which make migration patterns and settlement processes for refugees are very different from those of other migrants. The psychological effects of the trauma experienced by refugees tend to be enduring and long-lasting. This paper explores the link between refugee mental health and wellbeing and multicultural arts in the tropics. The contention of the paper is that multicultural arts allows for sensitivity to a person’s identity, heritage and experience and is an important component of healing and well-being. The paper uncovers how multicultural arts enable a dialogue around issues with forced migration, powerlessness, humiliation and anger and promotes social inclusion and belonging. The paper concludes by arguing that multicultural and multidimensional approaches are needed to achieve an integrated approach to the mental health of refugees.