Campaign News
Connecticut College, Smithsonian Collaborate For Annual Folklife Festival
June 19, 2007
Every year the Smithsonian Folklife Festival attracts more than a million people to the National Mall for an international exposition of cultural heritage.
This year, Connecticut College and Professor of Dance Lan-Lan Wang play a vital role in creating one of the festival’s three programs – “Mekong River: Connecting Cultures.” The exposition is the culmination of a four-year partnership between the College and the Smithsonian.
Through dance and musical performances, hands-on activities and craft demonstrations, the program will look at the diverse traditions and customs of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the Chinese province of Yunnan.
“There has been a tremendous lack of study for that part of Asia,” Wang said. “We’re bringing in cultural specialists and scholars to help explain and show the culture.”
Richard Kennedy, Deputy Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, said the work of Wang, the College and its students were critical.
“Programs start usually with people like Lan-Lan,” said Kennedy, who was awarded an honorary doctorate at Conn’s Commencement this year. “She was a valuable resource because she already had so many connections in the Mekong region.”
Wang was director of the Yunnan/Mekong Project and will represent the College by serving as Curator of the Yunnan portion of the exhibition.
The Yunnan/Mekong Project initially came about four years ago after the College and the Smithsonian formed a partnership in order to research, explore, study, sustain, and eventually present the unique cultural heritage of the Mekong River region.
Part of the College’s and Smithsonian’s collaboration included a joint research trip, funded by a $50,000 planning grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. In February 2003, Wang and an American delegation traveled to the Yunnan Province in China. Their research will now be presented at the festival to a wide audience.
The College will gain great exposure from the event, Wang said. “It’s a tremendous help for the College’s visibility both nationally and internationally.”
Kennedy said that many people still picture the region as it was during the Vietnam War, and in actuality, the cultures along the river have greatly evolved since then.
“I don’t want to say the region was neglected, but it had so many stereotypes surrounding it,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy hopes that the Festival will serve as a way to give visitors a broader perspective about the region, especially since a number of Americans now descend from countries along the river.
“We like to say that the Mekong River flows into the United States,” he said.
The exhibition’s attractions will include Vietnamese opera, Thai shadow puppetry, Cambodian classical dance and Chinese gourd flute music.
It’s also been an exciting experience for student interns, several of which came from Connecticut College.
“I think when we’ve connected with a college like Connecticut College, students can draw not only on their intellectual interests but see a very tangible result in the festival as well,” Kennedy said.
In addition to “Mekong River – Connecting Cultures,” festival-goers may also check out “Northern Ireland at the Smithsonian” and “Roots of Virginia Culture,” the two other exhibitions that make up the event.
The festival will be open from June 27 to July 1 and July 4 to July 8 from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day, with special events extending into the evenings. Admission is free.
For media inquiries contact: Amy Martin (860) 439-2526; a.martin@conncoll.edu