Reno ethnic festival celebrates cultural arts

  WARMING UP: Anissa Galata, 13, stretches out before she and her sister, Shayda, perform a Persian dance as part of Global Village, a cultural arts celebration Saturday night at the Senior Citizens  Center in Reno. The event was sponsored by the  Baha'i Faith Community of Reno.  

Group aims to end prejudice through the arts
By Monica Mendoza
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL

 To the participants of the song and dance festival Global Village, the world is a garden and the flowers were dancing Saturday night.
 Two of the participante, sisters Anissa, 13, and Shav_ da Galata. 10, earned thunderous applause from the 200 members of the audience for their Persian dance to eastern European music.
 The girls' performance was part of a larger celebration sponsored by the International Baha'i Media and Arts Association.

 The newly formed association, which includes a nine-member board of directors from around the world, plans to use art to convey its message of opposing prejudice.
 "This event shows the beauty of each culture," said Roya Galata, the girls' mother.
 Saturday night's Global Village featured Russian, Hebrew, African American. Caribbean, Native American and Middle Eastern performances.
 The Baha'i faith — founded in the late l9th century and now based in Israel — includes people from all religions and ethnic backgrounds, said Joseph Galata. one of board of directors of the association. He estimates that the religion has about 200 members in the Reno area.

 Followers believe in abolition of racial and religious prejudice, equality of the sexes and a universal faith based on the assumption that many of the world's religions have common elements.
 Artists including television producers, sculptors, movie directors, and video producers, formed the association to pull together the resources of Baha'i faith members locally, nationally and internationally.
 "We were appointed to direct a new leve) of arts to deliver our message," Joseph Galata said. "We will try through the media to eliminate prejudice."

 Local artists plaved to a crowded house at the Senior Citizens Center at Ninth and Sutro streets at the association's firsi meeting this weekend in Reno.
 "I feel strongly that the world is going through reformation," said Kenji Kenoshi, an association board member.
 Art always has been part of the Baha'i approach to spreading the message. But until recently the group didn't have a cohesive plan. Kenoshi said.
 "We need a better organization for marketing and distributing our material," he said.
 This weekend the association taped several shows for public-access television as a first step to spreading the word. Galata said.

Media and Arts Association holds weekend conference

 More than 200 Bahá'ís from the United States, Canada, England and other countries gathered in Reno, Nevada, January 18-21 for a weekend of arts/media teaching activities in conjunction with a board meeting of the newly formed International Bahá'í Media and Arts Association.
 For two days, the board consulted on developing the association's charter to effectively use Bahá'í writers, painters, musicians, directors, producers, actors, singers, musicians, sculptors, poets, editors, etc., to produce quality stage, radio, television, recording and performance/ show works for the non-Bahá'í public.
 Board members include Ramin Khadem of Great Britain, Fred Badi.yan of Minnesota, Anne Gordon Perry of Texas, Kenji Kenoshi of California, Leslie Asplundl of Washington, Clark Donnelly of Canada, Charles Nolley of Illinois, Joe Schinnick of Georgia and Joseph Galata of Nevada.
 The board's honorary adviser is David S. Ruhe, former member of the Universal House of Justice. Also in attendance, representing the National Teaching Office, was Allegra Kazemzadeh.
 To "walk the talk," the host Reno SpiritualAssembly planned outstanding arts/media teaching events throughout the weekend.
 More than 400 non-Bahá'ís attended a multi-cultural stage presentation of music, dance, fashion and fine arts called Global Village. Bahá'í choirs performed, along with 18 Bahá'í and nonBahá'í ethnic/racial groups including Gypsies, Russians, African-Americans, Jews and Sufis.
 Dr. Ruhe and his wife, writer and lecturer Margaret K. Ruhe, were interviewed for a one-hour television program about their personal and professional lives and their experience within the Bahá'í administration. The final part of the interview focused on the Bahá'í-Faith as the mearas of hope for a crying world.

 Well-known painter Ivan Lloyd also was interviewed for a one-hour television program. Surrounded by his colorful canvases on women, Bahá'í history, Táhirih and Shoghi Effendi, Mr. Lloyd spoke about his career as a painter. He told of his studies of art in Africa, India and Europe and the influence of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam on his work, and spoke about his Bahá'í paintings.
 Mrs. Perry and fellow actors Jame Toth, Bill George and Styve Homnick performed fictional and historical characters for a Bahá'í dramatic series titied To Catch a Glimpse. The pieces, from Roger White, John Chesley and the Diary of Juliet Thompson, were filmed by a 10-member crew of Bahá'ís and non-Bahá'ís at a Reno television studio before an invited audience.
 The Reno Gazette Journal, northern Nevada's major newspaper, featured a full-color photograph and major news coverage of the weekend's activities, including an in-depth article on the association's use of television, stage and the arts to eliminate prejudice. The NBC television affiliate also broadcast a special segment on Saturday evening.
 Ever since the weekend, the Reno Assembly has received daily phone calls from local, regional and even national schools and associations asking for Bahá'í help in creating multicultural productions.
 From the major newspaper article on the Global Village multi-ethnic stage show, a special fireside was held for 14 seekers who are prominent people in the Reno area.
 The Reno Assembly has been invited to work with a state arts foundation in securing a grant for a future art show on religious paintings featuring Mr. Lloyd and other artists.
 Requests for copies of the various television tapings are being received, even though post-production work has not even begun.
 The Reno Assembly also has been asked to-recite the opening prayer at - the Reno City Council meetings on three Bahá'í holidays.

 Based on the immense success of the Reno weekend, the International Bahá'í Media and Arts Association board has begun to search for a community that would like to host its next meeting in January or February 1997.
 The community must be willing to produce major public arts/media programs such as took place in Reno. They include unique and exciting art/media teaching programs, a film/video festival of works by Bahá'í television and film producers/directors, etc., and staging the premiere of a major Bahá'í opera or theatre show.
 The board also is creating a Bahá'í talent resource bank. Bahá'í artists of any discipline who would like to have their name and resumé included may write to Joseph Andrejchak Galata, 2392 Melody Lane, Reno NV 89512.