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(woman)
Minnesota Original
is made possible by
The Arts and Cultural
Heritage Fund,
and the citizens of Minnesota.
(male narrator) On this edition
of Minnesota Original...
We're with potter
Warren Mackenzie
in his Stillwater studio,
where he shapes clay into
simple, functional pieces.
Through an ancient
Indian dance form,
Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy
of Ragamala Dance
Worship of Sacred Waters.
And folk rock group
The Starfolk performs.
now on Minnesota Original.
(electronic music plays)
(acoustic guitar plays,
man sings)
Warm house, cold hands.
I was standing outside
trying to find your door.
(Warren Mackenzie)
I had a potter friend
who used to horrify his
beginning students
by saying the first 10,000 pots
are difficult,
a little bit easier! (laughs)
But that's literally true.
make a lot of pots,
and then it becomes
kind of second nature.
My name is Warren Mackenzie,
and I'm a potter.
I make a variety
of pots,
pots are designed
to be used in people's homes.
the making room of the studio.
All the wet clay
work is done here.
Chicago Art Institute in 1946.
to be a painter then,
but found out that all the
painting classes were filled.
well, what has room in it?
And they said
there's room in ceramics class.
ceramics was rather fascinating.
bowls of some sort here.
(sharp slapping)
This is a wheel,
a treadle wheel.
at the Leach Pottery,
from England in 1968.
him for 2-1/2 years in England
discussing the ideas
and problems and so on.
why we were making pots
of making pots.
I was hired to teach ceramics
from 1953 to 1989.
When I used to teach the
young women in my class,
their first question is--
is my left leg going to get
larger than my right? (laughs)
It's very relaxing
small serving bowls.
when you make a pot
it will be used every day.
handled and be looked at often.
and eaten from or drunk from.
And so there's
a constant contact
who's purchased your work.
I think people
are more likely here
in their home.
On the East and West coast,
buy to add to a collection.
I feel that people understand my
work better here in the Midwest.
(thud!)
Being a fast potter doesn't mean
you're a good potter. (chuckles)
Some potters throw very slowly
and make a completely different
kind of pot than I make.
I make a rather casual pot,
and so I can throw faster,
and it's not that critical.
Two parallel circles
running around a pot
are not very interesting.
But if you interrupt them...
by bringing them together
periodically,
first of all, it becomes
triangular,
the circle,
but also you bring the 2 parts
together.
I don't think I have a style.
Although, it's
strongly influenced by
a Japanese and Korean potter.
offhand approach to art,
which I admire a great deal.
I try to emulate that attitude.
Well, now they'll
go to the racks,
drying conditions,
it'll take a day or so
until they're ready to be turned
on the bottom.
(sharp slapping)
body of the teapot,
piece will make a lid,
and this will make a spout.
Having been made on the wheel,
they have to then dry
until they're half dry,
and you then glue them
together with liquid clay.
Teapots are one form
cut a foot on
because I wanted my pots to
be as inexpensive as possible
in quantity.
Clay is not expensive.
are not expensive
when you figure how
little goes on the pot.
The only thing that your
expense is, is your time.
And so if you can
control your time,
you can sell a pot
for not too much money.
I only sell through galleries,
is more expensive
because the gallery has
to pay their expenses also.
that the average person
can afford a pot
for not too much money.
it's not a major loss, you know.
a $10 pot-- that's affordable.
This is the glazing room.
and stir these buckets of glaze.
pots that I'll bring in here,
and I'll glaze them.
a gray matte surface glaze,
brown glaze over it,
I produce a strong yellow.
yellow all over.
These dry very quickly.
into the porous pot,
then I use a suede shoe brush
off the bottoms of the pots
on the bottom of the pot,
to the kiln shelf.
(soft scraping)
(quick blow)
And then we take these
into the kiln room.
This electric kiln is where
all my bisque firing is done,
so it's really nice.
I can set it to fire
at any speed I want,
to any temperature.
and close it up and fire it,
and then I go back to work.
doesn't take me any time.
All right, this is the big kiln;
this is the gas-fired kiln.
It's got 3 burners here.
Go in one side, the air,
the flame is circulating
and out the flues there.
pulls out on tracks here,
and the shelving is added
according to the size pots
you're firing.
And then we fire the kiln,
about 24 to 30 hours in this,
to cool the kiln down
before it can be unloaded.
our showroom.
It's where I sold all my pots.
7 other potters here also
keep the showroom filled.
when a group of people
began to not go by our rules
and to buy for resale
instead of for their own use.
That was why we closed it.
People in this area
for a long time,
to some very nice ceramics.
group of potters
working in this immediate area.
put aside to be considered
for an exhibition which we
are going to have in New York
in the fall of this year.
large number of pots,
and also I want to show a
variety of the things I make
I use and techniques.
I just love to make pots.
I'd be quite happy
working with someone
who would be glazing my pots
and firing the kiln
do would be make pots.
but it doesn't work that way.
I had an apprentice,
and I realized I don't like
working with other people.
all myself. (laughs)
But I like to make pots.
That's what I like to do.
traditional music of India)
Ragamala Dance
is a company that does work
based in the South Indian
of bharatanatyam.
It's an ancient dance form
that has a tremendous creative
capacity.
It has a narrative aspect
and a rhythmic aspect,
by other dance forms,
from around the world
to create collaborative work.
(Ranee Ramaswamy)
Here in the Twin Cities,
we perform both
at the Southern Theater
and also The O'Shaughnessy,
over the United States.
We also tour abroad.
(man sings a traditional
Indian song in Hindi)
Ranee is not just my mother,
but she is my best friend
and my partner,
my business partner,
my partner in sharing
something that we love.
We've always worked together
ever since I was a child,
studying together,
learning, creating, talking.
Sometimes I feel like we're
2 sides of the same person,
but we're very, very different
people.
complement each other well.
Aparna is my soulmate.
I don't think I'd be doing
what I'm doing now without
Aparna because
I'm like
a wild waterfall,
and Aparna has really mapped
me out and taken me to places
where it's concrete
and things happen a certain way.
I came to this country in 1978.
I started to teach
in the Indian community
because there wasn't anybody
who had studied Indian dance,
because until then,
all the work we did
was very, very traditional.
So the Ragamala was formed
to make Indian dance
to all audiences.
That was the original intent.
The key elements
of bharatanatyam,
we have 2 distinct aspects.
One is Natya,
which is rhythmic dance,
music through movement.
We use our feet percussively
to interpret rhythm.
of interpreting.
usage of the body,
and 24 doublehanded gestures.
kinds of walks.
Then we have expressing through
words,
which is a very integral part
dances
because even though it has
a very complex set of gestures,
it's not a perfect language.
It doesn't have grammar,
composition.
So we need the spoken text
or song.
So each story has
a particular emotional flavor,
and we tell that story using
the gestures and the expressions
and the words and costumes
and so on.
(man sings in Hindi)
We are working on a piece
called Ihrah: Sacred Waters.
is that rivers in India
and each has a personification
of a religious deity.
(Ranee) And it is about
that in the 21st Century,
how pilgrims from all over the
world come and offer salutations
to this mother goddess.
go through the landscape
traveling to Haridwar, being
in the city, how crowded it is,
and they go up to the river,
and all the rituals that happen.
I would say there are several
things that are very important
in bharatanatyam.
I think at its most basic level,
the technical complexity
that exists
and the capacity
to create within it,
it's such a rich dance form,
and when you live
in the United States
where there is a tendency to
always be excited by newness
created kind of from nothing,
I think there is something very,
very important about history
with a tradition
and something with a narrative,
all of those things are
to move forward
one's own artistic voice.
There is an underlying
spirituality in what we do
that is very, very important,
choreographers
might say different things,
but for us, that's something
in every work that we create
because it is the core feeling
from which bharatanatyam
comes from,
feel so deeply when we perform,
way that we see this art form
very, very serious.
It's our life and our passion.
So that spirituality
is something
that we strive to communicate,
and people can interpret
that however they like.
We're doing Indian dance,
but it's only myself,
Aparna, and Ashwini--
my daughters are Indians.
All our other dance company
members are from here,
they're American-born,
American women.
So you can see how
when you see them dance,
they have truly
dedicated themselves
to learn this art form
because they're not
just learning movement.
It's not like you
can take anybody
to come and dance with us.
They have to be
specialized in our style,
of worshipping a cow--
they don't know anything
about it-- ringing a bell,
placing a candle in the water.
When we teach people,
when you look at somebody else
and they think
oh, we want to dance like that
and they try to do this,
it doesn't work.
We have to constantly mold them,
saying it's not just a look.
It has to go with everything.
that they have cultivated
through working with us for
almost 15 years some of them.
so we are very honored
as part of our company.
amount of joy in her dance,
and she just exudes that.
I have always been a very
serious--I'm the fun person,
but when I dance,
I get to be more
the spiritual aspect of it,
or I become more serious.
I love it so much.
I've always loved dancing
from the time I was a child,
and this is kind of like
a second opportunity for me
because in India, usually once
you marry, you don't dance,
coming to this country
this second opportunity,
and I've danced more than I have
ever danced in India as a child.
to do because this is--
like breathing to me.
either one of them.
(Aparna) I dance because it's
what I love,
and ever since I was young,
I knew I was going to be
doing this in my life.
And we always talked about it.
It was nothing that
anyone ever pushed me to do,
really important,
love something so much
and you have someone
to share it with
and you both love it together
and you see it as this,
as we say, an ocean that
you're never going to master,
always something to learn,
it makes you want to
go deeper and deeper.
So I just absolutely love it,
I love who you
get to be on stage
and how you express yourself.
I think if you can
move somebody with art,
it's a very special thing,
and so that's what we aim to do,
and if we succeed at that,
then we feel like
we've done a good job.
mnoriginal.org...
(David) A good piece of glass
is sort of a series of events
that take place,
as the last.
(acoustic guitar & cello play)
(Brian Tighe)
been doing music together
for such a long time
that it just seemed natural.
We were in a relationship
for like 7 years
before we started working
together.
It was an epiphany
that oh, we can play,
we can do this together,
just been, it's been great!
skills
were really helpful to her
realizing her songs.
that the hardest part
is the lyrics,
and that's maybe the
easiest part for Allison,
and so I've found someone
that can really help me
complete my songs.
be nice on a couple songs,
and so we called Jacqueline up
and asked her
if she'd be interested in
playing on a couple songs,
a band that just felt right.
the way you meet people
and you discover
different sounds,
playing with Jacqueline,
such a big part of the sound.
is truly to just have music
incorporated
holistically in my life,
how I make all my money
or some of my money,
it doesn't really matter.
sort of accepting
that it's always
going to be there,
acknowledge it and feed it.
(the bass joins the guitar)
I'm watching you rise
into the great unknown.
I hope you'll be safe
on your long ride back home.
You know
is black
the wind is at your back.
To cross the great expanse
sky like shards of glass
and none
will last
when she was done
except the morning sun.
really in the sky.
a long bye-bye
and starlight can
see so far away
until she becomes
the light of day
into the great unknown.
I hope you'll be safe on
your long ride back home
You know
although the night
is black,
your back,
the wind is at your back,
is at your back.
ooo-ooo ooo-ooo
ooo-ooo
(narrator) Coming soon
to Minnesota Original...
rattle my bones
Rattle my bones, rattle
my bones.
(electronic music plays)
CC--Armour Captioning & TPT
Minnesota Original
is made possible by
and Cultural Heritage Fund,
and the citizens of Minnesota.
(orchestral fanfare)