Dance around the world: Jazz dance, hip hop dance, Kathak, Funga

Jazz Dance

Jazz dance is a classification shared by a broad range of dance styles. Prior to the 1950s, jazz dance referred to dance styles that originated from African American vernacular dance. In the 1950s, a new genre of jazz dance—modern jazz dance—emerged, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance. Every individual style of jazz dance has roots traceable to one of these two distinct origins.



Hip hop Dance

Hip-hop dance refers to social or choreographed dance styles primarily danced to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture. This includes a wide range of styles notably breaking, locking, and popping which were developed in the 1970s by Black and Latino Americans. What separates hip-hop dance from other forms of dance is that it is often freestyle in nature and hip-hop dancers frequently engage in battles—formal or informal freestyle dance competitions. Internationally, hip-hop dance has had a particularly strong influence in France and South Korea.



Kathak

Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances, originated from northern India. This dance form traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathaks, or storytellers. These bards, performing in village squares and temple courtyards, mostly specialized in recounting mythological and moral tales from the scriptures, and embellished their recitals with hand gestures and facial expressions.



Funga

The Funga is a welcome and harvest dance from the Vai people of Liberia. It is made up of two dances brought to the West in the 1930’s and 1940’s by Pearl Primus. It is the "Swan Lake of African Dance" because it is the most widely known and done of the African dances.



Information from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip-hop_dance
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002266F/africa.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_dance

Buddha's Birthday

Buddha's Birthday, the birthday of the Prince Siddhartha Gautama is a holiday traditionally celebrated in Mahayana Buddhism.In all east Asian countries except Japan it is held on the 8th day of the 4th month in the Chinese lunar calendar, and the day is an official holiday in Hong Kong, Macau, and South Korea.

Japan

As same as other traditional holidays like New year, Japanese culture "translates" every traditional festival's date into Gregorian calendar's one. The 4th month in Chinese Lunar Calendar is translated into April or May. Therefore Buddha's Birthday is celebrated on April 8 or May 8 in many Japanese temples.In Japan, Buddha's Birthday is also celebrated according to the Buddhist calendar but is not a national holiday. On this day, all temples do celebratory events/festivals called Kanbutsu-e, meaning 'Flower Festival'. The first event was held at Asuka-dera in 606. Japanese people pour ama-cha (a beverage prepared from a variety of hydrangea) on small Buddha statues decorated with flowers, as if bathing a newborn baby.

India

Birth of Buddha or Tathagata is celebrated in India, especially in Sikkim, Ladakh , Arunachal Pradesh, Bodh Gaya and Maharashtra (where 6% of total population are Buddhists) and other parts of India as per Indian calendar. Buddhist People go to common Viharas to observe a rather longer-than-usual, full-length Buddhist sutra, as something like a service. The usual dress is pure white. Non-vegetarian food is normally avoided. Kheer, a sweet rice porridge is commonly served to recall the story of Sujata, a maiden who, in Gautama Buddha's life, offered the Buddha a bowl of milk porridge.

Nepal

The birth of the Buddha is often celebrated by Buddhists in Nepal for an entire month in the Buddhist calendar. The actual day is called Buddha Poornima (or Buddha Purnima), also traditionally known as Vaishakh Poornima. Although the day marks not just the birth of Shakyamuni Gautam Buddha, but also the day of Enlightenment, and Mahaparinirvana. But as a gentle effect of West, the event of Birth is given paramount importance. The event is celebrated by gentle and serene fervour, keeping in mind the very nature of Buddhism. People, especially women, go to common Viharas to observe a rather longer-than-usual, full-length Buddhist sutra, as something like a service. The usual dress is pure white. Non-vegetarian food is normally avoided. Kheer, a sweet rice porridge is commonly served to recall the story of Sujata, a maiden who, in Gautama Buddha's life, offered the Buddha a bowl of milk porridge after he had given up the path of asceticism following six years of extreme austerity. This event was one major link in his enlightenment.It is said that the Buddha originally followed the way of asceticism to attain enlightenment sooner, as was thought by many at that time. He sat for a prolonged time with inadequate food and water, which caused his body to shrivel so as to be indistinguishable from the bark of the tree that he was sitting under. Seeing the weak Siddhartha Gautama, a girl named Sujata placed a bowl of milk in front of him as an offering. Realizing that without food one can do nothing, the Buddha refrained from harming his own body.

Korea

In Korea the birthday of Buddha is celebrated according to the Lunisolar calendar. This day is called Seokga tansinil, meaning "the day of Buddha's birthday" or Bucheonim osin nal meaning "the day when Buddha arrived". Lotus lanterns cover the entire temple throughout the month which are often flooded down the street. On the day of Buddha's birth, many temples provide free meals and tea to all visitors. The breakfast and lunch provided are often sanchae bibimbap.

Sri Lanka

This is one of the major festivals in Sri Lanka. It is celebrated on the first full moon day of the month of May. People engage in religious observances and decorate houses and streets with candles and specially made lanterns.

Other countries

Some places have a public holiday one week later, on the fifteenth day of the fourth month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, to coincide with the full moon. For instance, Visakha Puja in Thailand or Lễ Phật đản in Vietnam was such a holiday on May 12 in 2006. Other countries including Singapore and Malaysia also celebrate Vesak Day on the fifteenth day of the fourth month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar, a public holiday in these two countries.

Information taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha's_Birthday

Today's celebrations May 15th!

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Independence Day in Paraguay

International Day of Families

Mother's Day in Samoa

Peace Officer Memorial Day in the United States of America

San Isidro in Spain

San Isidro Labrador in Peru

Teacher's Day in South Korea

International Conscientious Objector Day

Today's celebrations May 8th!

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Armistice Day / V-E Day in Switzerland

Celebration of WWII Victory in Sint Maarten / St. Martin

Den osvobozeni od fasismu - 1945 (Liberation from Fascism Day - 1945) in the Czech Republic

Féte de la Victoire 1945 (WWII Victory Day) in St. Pierre & Miquelon

Liberation Day in France

Liberation day (Liberation from Germany after WW2) in Norway

Liberation of the Republic in Slovakia

Parent's Day in South Korea

Red Cross Day in Australia

VE Day in French Guiana and New Caledonia

V-E Day in the United Kingdom and United States of America

Victory Day in Guadeloupe and Martinique

World Red Cross Day

Today's celebrations May 5th!

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Children's Day in South Korea

Cinco de Mayo in the United States of America

Constitution Day in Kyrgyzstan

Coronation Day in Thailand

Indian Heritage Day in Guyana

International Midwives Day

Kodomo no Hi / Children's Day (End of Golden Week) in Japan

Kvetnove povstani ceskeho lidu - 1945 (Prague Uprising - 1945) in the Czech Republic

Senior Citizen's Day in Palau

Liberation Day - Nationale Bevrijdingsdag in the Netherlands

Battle of Puebla in Mexico

Who is Kim Il-Sung?

Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led North Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994.He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death. He was also the General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea. During his tenure as leader of North Korea, he ruled the nation with autocratic power and established an all-pervasive cult of personality. North Korea officially refers to Kim Il-sung as the "Great Leader" and he is designated in the constitution as the country's "Eternal President". His birthday is a public holiday in North Korea.

The Communist Party of Korea had been founded in 1925, but had been thrown out of the Comintern in the early 1930s for being too nationalist. In 1931, Kim had joined the Communist Party of China. He joined various anti-Japanese guerrilla groups in northern China, and in 1935 he became a member of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, a guerrilla group led by the Communist Party of China. Kim was appointed the same year to serve as political commissar for the 3rd detachment of the second division, around 160 soldiers.Kim was appointed commander of the 6th division in 1937, at the age of 24, controlling a few hundred men in a group that came to be known as “Kim Il Sung’s division.” Kim’s division only captured a small Japanese-held town just across the Korean border for a few hours, it was nonetheless considered a military success at this time, when the guerrilla units had experienced difficulty in capturing any enemy territory. This accomplishment would grant Kim some measure of fame among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies would later exploit it as a great victory for Korea. Kim was appointed commander of the 2nd operational region for the 1st Army, but by the end of 1940, he was the only 1st Army leader still alive.Kim became a Captain in the Soviet Red Army and served in it until the end of World War II.In later years, Kim would heavily embellish his guerrilla feats in order to build up his personality cult. He was portrayed as a boy-conspirator who joined the resistance at 14 and had founded a battle-ready army at 19. North Korean students are taught that this Kim-led army singlehandedly drove the Japanese off the peninsula.

Kim arrived in North Korea on August 22 after 26 years in exile. His Korean was marginal at best; he'd only had eight years of formal education, all of it in chinese. In September 1945, Kim was installed by the Soviets as head of the Provisional People’s Committee. He was not, at this time, the head of the Communist Party.During his early years as leader, he assumed a position of influence largely due to the backing of the Korean population which was supportive of his fight against Japanese occupation.One of Kim’s accomplishments was his establishment of a professional army, the Korean People's Army (KPA) aligned with the Communists, formed from a cadre of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and later Nationalist Chinese troops. From their ranks, using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed a large army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare.Kim also formed an air force, equipped at first with ex-Soviet propeller-driven fighter and attack aircraft.

In 1948, Kim persuaded the Soviets not to allow the UN north of the 38th parallel, believing he could not possibly win a free election. As a result, a month after the South was granted independence as the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed on September 9, with Kim as premier. On October 12, the Soviet Union declared that Kim's regime was the only lawful government on the peninsula. The Communist Party merged with the New People's Party to form the Workers Party of North Korea (of which Kim was vice-chairman). In 1949, the Workers Party of North Korea merged with its southern counterpart to become the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) with Kim as party chairman.By 1949, North Korea was a full-fledged Communist dictatorship. All parties and mass organizations were cajoled into the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, ostensibly a popular front but in reality dominated by the Communists. Around this time, Kim built the first of many statues of himself and began calling himself "the Great Leader."

After the Korean War, Kim launched a five-year national economic plan to establish a command economy, with all industry owned by the state and all agriculture collectivised. The nation was founded on egalitarian principles intent on eliminating class differences and the economy was based upon the needs of workers and peasants. The economy was focused on heavy industry and arms production. Both South and North Korea retained huge armed forces to defend the 1953 ceasefire line, although no foreign troops were permanently stationed in North Korea.

Kim's hold on power was rather shaky. To strengthen it, he claimed that the United States deliberately spread diseases among the North Korean population. While Moscow and Beijing later determined that these charges were false, they continued to help spread this rumor for many years to come. He also conducted North Korea's first large-scale purges in part to scare the people into accepting this false account.Victims often simply disappeared into the growing network of prison camps.

During the 1950s, Kim was seen as an orthodox Communist leader, and an enthusiastic satellite of the Soviet Union. His speeches were liberally sprinkled with praises to Stalin. However, he sided with China during the Sino-Soviet split, opposing the reforms brought by Nikita Khrushchev, whom he believed was acting in opposition to Communism. He distanced himself from the Soviet Union, removing mention of his Red Army career from official history, and began reforming the country to his own radical Stalinist tastes.

From the mid-1960s, he promoted his self-developed Juche variant of communist national organisation. The Juche is the official state ideology of North Korea. It teaches that "man is the master of everything and decides everything," and that the Korean people are the masters of Korea's revolution. According to Kim Jong-il's On the Juche Idea, the application of Juche in state policy entails the following:

1. The people must have independence in thought and politics, economic self-sufficiency, and self-reliance in defense.
2. Policy must reflect the will and aspirations of the masses and employ them fully in revolution and construction.
3. Methods of revolution and construction must be suitable to the situation of the country.
4. The most important work of revolution and construction is molding people ideologically as communists and mobilizing them to constructive action.

The Juche outlook requires absolute loyalty to the revolutionary party and leader. In North Korea, these are the Workers' Party of Korea and Kim Jong-il, respectively.

A new constitution was proclaimed in December 1972, under which Kim became President of North Korea. By this time, he had decided that his son Kim Jong-il would succeed him, and increasingly delegated the running of the government to him. At the Sixth Party Congress in October 1980, Kim publicly designated his son as his successor.

By the early 1990s, North Korea was nearly completely isolated from the outside world, except for limited trade and contacts with China, Russia, Vietnam, and Cuba. Its economy was virtually bankrupt, crippled by huge expenditures on armaments, with an agricultural sector unable to feed its population, but state-run North Korean media continued to lionize Kim. On July 8, 1994 at age 82, Kim Il-sung collapsed from a sudden heart attack. After the attack Kim Jong-il ordered the team of doctors who always were at his father's side to leave, and insisted that only the best be flown in from Pyongyang. Hours passed as the elder Kim lay near death in a room with his son, when the doctors finally arrived, the elder Kim was too far gone and died despite efforts to save him. Many claim Kim Jong-Il did this to ensure his father's death and his rise to power 3 years later.

There are over 500 statues of Kim Il-sung in North Korea. Some statues have been destroyed by explosions or damaged with graffiti. Kim Il-sung's image is prominent in places associated with public transportation, hanging at every North Korean train station and airport.It is also placed prominently at the border crossings between China and North Korea. His portrait is featured on the front of all recent North Korean one banknotes.

Information from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung#Leader_of_North_Korea

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_04/BowDownAP_468x293.jpg

Today's Celebrations April 5th!

Today is...

Arbor Day in South Korea

Ching Ming Festival in Taiwan

Qingming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Day) in China

All About April Fools Day!

What is April Fool's Day?

April Fool's Day, also known as All Fools Day, is always celebrated on April 1st and marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication. Traditionally, in countries such as the UK, Australia and South Africa the jokes only last until noon, and someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool". Elsewhere, such as in Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea, The Netherlands, and the USA, the jokes last all day.

Where does it come from?

The origin of April Fools' Day is unknown. One likely theory is that April Fool's Day comes from the Persian tradition of Sizdah Bedar, which is believed to be the oldest prank-related tradition in the world still alive, celebrated by Persians as far back as 536 BC. Another theory is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar; the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar, which it replaced. In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool may have been someone who did this prematurely. Another possible origin lies in the fact that when King Charles IX of France officially changed the first day of the year from April 1 to January 1, some of his subjects continued using the old system.

The best April Fool's of all time

The Museum of Hoaxes lists the top 100 April Fool's day hoaxes of all time, and we have picked our top 10. If you want to see the full list, click here.

1. 1976: The British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.
2. 1996: The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
3. 1959: The residents of Wellingborough, England woke to find a trail of white footprints painted along the main street of their town. At the end of the trail were the words, "I must fly."
4. 1974: Residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke. People spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke. A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano's crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life. According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, "This time you've gone too far!"
5. 1915: On April 1, 1915, in the midst of World War I, a French aviator flew over a German camp and dropped what appeared to be a huge bomb. The German soldiers immediately scattered in all directions, but no explosion followed. After some time, the soldiers crept back and gingerly approached the bomb. They discovered it was actually a large football with a note tied to it that read, "April Fool!"
6. 1965: Politiken, a Copenhagen newspaper, reported that the Danish parliament had passed a new law requiring all dogs to be painted white. The purpose of this, it explained, was to increase road safety by allowing dogs to be seen more easily at night.
7. 1997: An email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.
8. 1993: Westdeutsche Rundfunk, a German radio station, announced that officials in Cologne had just passed an unusual new city regulation. Joggers going through the park would be required to pace themselves to go no faster than six mph. Any faster, it was felt, would unnecessarily disturb the squirrels who were in the middle of their mating season.
9. 1993: The China Youth Daily, an official state newspaper of China, announced on its front page that the government had decided to make Ph.D. holders exempt from the state-imposed one-child limit. The logic behind this decision was that it would eventually reduce the need to invite as many foreign experts into the country to help with the state's modernization effort. Despite a disclaimer beneath the story identifying it as a joke, the report was repeated as fact by Hong Kong's New Evening News and by Agence France-Presse, an international news agency. Apparently what made the hoax seem credible to many was that intellectuals in Singapore are encouraged to marry each other and have children, and China's leaders are known to have great respect for the Singapore system. The Chinese government responded to the hoax by condemning April Fool's Day as a dangerous Western tradition. The Guangming Daily, Beijing's main newspaper for intellectuals, ran an editorial stating that April Fool's jokes "are an extremely bad influence." It went on to declare that, "Put plainly, April Fool's Day is Liar's Day."
10. In 1994 National Public Radio's All Things Considered program reported that companies such as Pepsi were sponsoring teenagers to tattoo their ears with corporate logos. In return for branding themselves with the corporate symbol, the teenagers would receive a lifetime 10% discount on that company's products. Teenagers were said to be responding enthusiastically to this deal.

April Fool.... Wait.... No it isn't!

The frequency of April Fools' hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt real news stories released on April 1. Below are some events that were taken to be April Fools jokes, but weren't!

• The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system (specifically the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre), established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.
• In 1979, Iran declared April 1 its national Republic Day. Thirty years on, this continues to be mistaken for a joke.
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer.
• Gmail's April 2004 launch was widely believed to be a prank, as Google traditionally perpetrates April Fools' Day hoaxes each April 1. Another Google-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1, 2007, when employees at Google's New York City office were alerted that a ball python kept in an engineer's cubicle had escaped and was on the loose. An internal e-mail acknowledged that "the timing…could not be more awkward" but that the snake's escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.
• On April 1, 2009, A school was almost burned to the ground in the Danish town Albertslund; apparently, the fire department refused to believe that the news was true the first two times that people called to report it.
• Also on April 1, 2009, a Virus/Worm was called Conficker and spread to millions of computers and releasing personal info and deleting files. This was supposed to be a joke, but random computers throughout America were hit. Before this happened, news media like, NBC, Fox News, ABC and CBS told the viewers to install firewalls and updates to their Windows Computers before it hit.

Information from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/P60/

Today's Celebrations March 1!

Today is...

Anti-Japanese Uprising Day in North Korea

Baba Marta in Bulgaria

Heroes' Day in Paraguay

Independence Movement Day in South Korea

Instauration de la Republique in Switzerland

International Women of Color Day all over the world!

International Day of the Seal all over the world!

Memorial Day in the Marshall Islands

National Independence Day in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Nuclear Victim's Remembrance Day in the Marshall Islands

St. David's Day in the United Kingdom

Yap Day (Yap) in Micronesia

Labour Day (Western Australia) in Australia

National Pig Day in the United States of America

Martisor in Romania

St. David's Day in Christianity