[ INTRO SOUND ] (Mary) Coming up on State of the Arts, an abandoned lot revitalized through cultural sharing, Brazilian music with the power to heal, and a Celtic celebration.

These stories and more on State of the Arts.

♪ LIVELY MUSIC ♪ Hello and thanks for joining us.

I'm your host, Mary Paul, and this week we bring you a collection of stories about how cultural sharing can enhance community and an appreciation for the arts.

As May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we want to begin by taking you to Asia Town in Cleveland, Ohio.

There, a group of artists join together for a transformative project in an abandoned parking lot.

Their efforts serve as proof that through public art, vibrant outdoor community spaces can emerge to bring people together.

♪ ENERGETIC MUSIC ♪ (Jordan) We are here because there's a lot of opportunities in this space.

Currently it's being used as kind of a community gathering spot.

And as a recipient of the Transform of Arts Fund, me and my team are excited to be working on a series of public art installations that's going to elevate this space.

(Grace) Jordan Wong and the Sculpture Center, as well as a number of other community partners and artists, have been working on this site in Asia Town to transform it literally from an empty parking lot to a space for cultural gathering, for meeting, for play, and just for the neighborhood to be activated with people in it.

(Jordan) I have had the privilege to do several, you know, public art projects here in Asia Town.

And to be able to share some of the things that I grew up, you know, seeing as a kid that resonated with me and also are part of my exploration, you know, as far as cultural identity and belonging, to share that with the families and residents, especially the kids in Asia Town, it's an honor.

It's a privilege.

So today is April 23rd, and we're aiming to finish the project before the end of September and have it connect with the Mid-Autumn Festival later this fall.

The project is called "For Those Who Call Here Home: Transforming Asia Town with an Outdoor Community Space."

[ IDLE CHATTER ] Based on previous conversations, we learned a sentiment from the community, specifically this one parent that if you build only things for adults, it really leaves out the children.

However, if you focus on creating things for children, for kids, it actually brings the family together and therefore, you know, unites the community.

Our project is focusing on five public art and installations.

One of them is an entrance gate, which the community has voiced a desire for a landmark signifying Asia Town.

The large-scale light box, it's dark here in Asia Town at night, and, you know, we want to create more safety and well-lit areas.

We're also focusing on elements of play in regards to these unique seating installations, these playful seating, as well as ping pong tables and our planter series that we've invited three emerging Asian artists to create artwork for.

So our three selected artists are Thao Nguyen, Lydia Guan, and Nick Lee.

These three artists, they have their own distinct visual language and interests as far as like conceptual exploration, but the three of them use color quite brilliantly and have strong just abilities in drawing and painting and image making.

(Nick) I'm really interested in better representing the Japanese-American community just because we're not being fully represented in our galleries and institutions.

So my initial idea was to paint a tiger.

Tigers aren't native to Japan anymore, but they still hold significance in Japanese art.

I relate to things through objects, and that's why I often do still lifes or have my figures holding something Japanese-related.

I love the culture in Asia Town and the history, and I think it's important that we get back to our community within Cleveland, especially on the East Side.

We really wanted to revamp the space and to make it more welcoming and friendly to our local community.

You can see that it's a little run down at the moment.

Art can change a lot and make people more excited about visiting Asia Town.

(Thao) Growing up and having immigrant parents, I think, has really taught me to work hard and just be very passionate about what you do.

And in this piece that I'm making, it's actually about first generation Asian-Americans and that familiarity of when you visit your hometown overseas.

I also want the birds to represent people in different backgrounds and environments that we grow up in and that we're all connected as one.

For me, birds are a huge symbol of just freedom and growth, and the impact of just wildlife is a huge memory for me.

It's always been a dream to do something related to Asia Town, and I saw this opportunity come up, and I just thought I would apply and just see what happens.

She's the master behind all the cooking.

She's an inspiration.

(Lydia) Growing up, I did a lot of cooking with my mom.

That's just something I like to do and I like to look at, so I like to put that into my art.

When I see the food that my mom makes, which is mostly all Cantonese dishes that she grew up with, and she learned through my grandma, aunties.

It kind of passes down through me, and when I see that food, it just really makes me feel at home.

So I like to feel that in my artwork.

I'm very familiar with Asia Town.

Every weekend we would come, and that's how I spent most of my childhood.

I love being in a group and collaborating with other Asian artists.

Growing up, I didn't have very many Asian friends around me, and working with very skilled, very talented artists.

I'm very grateful.

(Jordan) It's late June, and it's going well, and we are very, very busy.

Drawing.

A lot of drawing.

♪ EXCITED BEAT ♪ Today is a big day, celebrating all five public artworks for Asia Town, completed by being my team for the Transformative Arts Fund.

It's also Mid-Autumn Festival here in Asia Town, so there's a lot of festivities and celebrations today.

It's a bit overwhelming to see everything come together and see the community really take a part of it, and we were really excited for this moment, and it's really great to see it all come together.

(Thao) I think seeing it from the sketches and finally, viewing it in real time, like it all coming to life, I mean, I feel very happy.

Just seeing it all build up with people instead of it just being empty.

(Lydia) This town did a really nice job.

I'm really happy with Jordan's lead and making this all come to life, and then working with Tal and Nick.

They did a fantastic job on their pots.

Artwork came out amazing.

(Grace) We're just so happy that it all came together.

It has been a year and a half of planning, and people are using the space exactly as we have intended.

(Jordan) This is like what the neighborhood has needed for a long time.

It's been incredible.

It's been an honor.

(Grace) My hope is that this space will become a permanent park, and that this asphalt will be replaced by more nature's cave and green space.

(Mary) Now we head to Florida to meet Brazilian Voices, a women's vocal ensemble that brings the soothing sounds of Bossa Nova to audiences in need of healing.

Whether it be a hospital, a cancer center, or an assisted living facility, these singers spread joy and hope through art's greatest medicine, music.

♪ BOSSA NOVA ♪ (Beatriz) There was a big need of music in places that we thought that there was no music.

Sometimes people in hospitals, they cannot go to a theater or listen to music, and we found out, wow, they cannot.

It's the first time they heard some music.

So we slowly noticed that people really wanted, and they were so happy to hear music in hospital settings.

A main characteristic of the Bossa Nova is a breathy way of singing.

This breathy way of singing also makes a group of people, let's say a choir, a group, a vocal group like Brazilian Voices, blend.

It's easier to blend when people, you saw us sing here, how we sing softly.

So the blending of the voices are, you know, very easy.

The voices blend together.

We are not soloist singers.

We are blending together into one.

And this also, I think this is very responsible for how people feel in healthcare settings about bossa nova.

(Loren) In the beginning, you can imagine nobody needs a group of Brazilians, you know, going to a hospital or cancer center.

We had to really prove that by going in a small ensemble, singing very soft, bossa nova, which bossa nova was born from, joyful experiences in Brazil, right?

Talks about nature, the waves, the ocean, the flowers.

So we really need to get together this repertoire, and it's more on someone that would be ready with the protocols, hospital protocols, HIPAA, compliance.

So little by little, we feel that it was baby steps.

It was not like, okay, we're going to perform in a hospital, and here we are.

No.

When we're right there in front of a patient, there's a lot of fears.

There's a lot of sorrows.

So we feel the songs that will bring resilience, but also recognize the fears, the pain that they're going through.

It's not that we're singing and kind of isolating, you know what I mean?

The part of the pain and the sorrow is one.

We recognize your pain.

We know what you're going through, but maybe you'd like to play with us.

How about some shaker?

So it's inviting them to come.

We don't invade them, but we invite them.

And bossa nova is just perfect for that kind of action.

(Stacy) I think music has a way of ministering to your soul, and it's every time I go in for this, you know, scans or whatever, I always want music.

And so when I came today for my infusion and I heard the ladies singing out in the hall, it was beautiful.

I mean, I wanted to stop and listen, and I think if I was, if they were singing in this room now, it would give me comfort, give me peace and take your mind away from what's happening and what's going on in your life.

(Loren) When we're building a repertoire, we're always thinking about reducing stress because music has already a lot of, you know, research about reducing stress.

And also songs that we feel that are joyful but not too hyper.

So we understand the happy chemicals, that the brain releases endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin.

We already know all those.

We have a plan of our researchers to prove that, right?

But to bring that into action and applying that to a repertoire, to arrangements, the arrangements that Brazilian Voices does with, most of them are made by Beatriz Malnic.

She's very careful how she's going to make those harmonies to feel so organic, so natural and so complex at the same time.

I would say that 98% of the patients and staff totally responding positively to the action because they know, even if for three minutes, because we don't engage in dialogue, right?

It's different than music therapy, artist in residence.

So they know that in their very moments, they might have like three minutes just to allow themselves to relax, to acceptance and to play.

And right there, the happy chemicals, there's a lot of release of happy chemicals, a lot of engagement.

They kind of, it's reducing perceived pain.

(Beatriz) Bossa Nova is a genre that's really good for healthcare settings.

You hear the notes and you can reproduce the notes, but when you hear harmony, you cannot reproduce harmonies.

So it's really embracing.

People really feel embraced by the harmony.

♪ ENSEMBLE BOSSA NOVA ♪ We are a group now of 32 singers.

Only a smaller group goes to hospitals, right?

But we perform also in theaters, in different venues.

(Loren) We had the pleasure of performing two songs with Guilherme Arantes, which is a great Brazilian composer.

He invited us to perform in Carnegie Hall We performed two songs there, so check the box.

It was amazing.

And also Yo-Yo Ma, he was so kind and he invited us to perform "Girl from Ipanema" with us in one of the events here to support our local community as well.

And it was such a dream to be able to get to know his wonderful soul.

Once a year, we do this audition open to our community.

We invite people from different countries, different languages, Americans.

We have Americans as well, from New York, from California.

They just want to learn and be able to have this platform very organized to go to the community and serve the community.

So the level of commitment these singers have, it's just unbelievable.

Brazilian Voices put together this methodology that really helps them to understand not only self-expression, how to walk in this environment, but also the projection, harmonies, songs, repertoire.

There's a specific repertoire that we bring to the Arts and Healing Program, right?

So it usually takes six months to one year for the singers to be able to master the repertoire and learn how to walk the walk in the hospitals.

The community in the medical venues right now are just unbelievable.

We receive so much support from the nurses, from the doctors and patients because they know music is medicine.

♪ CHEERFUL MELODY ♪ And finally, it doesn't matter if you're a member of the oldest Highland clan or have nary a drop of Celtic blood.

This unique cultural festival held every summer in Ohio welcomes all.

From heavy athletics to medieval reenactments to competitive bagpipes, there's a bit of everything on display.

(Tyler) It's called the Ohio Scottish Games and Celtic Festival, and we truly mean both the aspects of the games and the festival.

The games aspect of it are all the competitions from the bagpipes, Scottish fiddle, Scottish harp, the Highland dancers, the heavy athletics.

And then you have the festival, which are the over 60 vendors, the over 20 clans from around Ohio and the greater regional area.

We have over 20 bands from around the country as well as from Canada.

We have over 150 Piper competitors as well as we have over 130 Scottish dancers.

We have Irish wolfhounds, we have Clydesdales that are originally Scottish breeds, we have the big fluffy Scottish cattle, we have the Ohio School of Falconry that's showing their birds of prey.

♪ BAGPIPES ♪ (Doug) They'll have a clan tent where you can go and visit them.

If you know you're a member of that clan, like for me it would be clan MacMillan would be the clan.

I'd go and visit their tent and talk to them and sometimes give you a little shot of whiskey something at the end of the day.

♪ BAGPIPES ♪ (Betty) That's when Douglas got in it.

That's when I found out about it.

Never saw that in Scotland.

I liked it.

I thought this is great, I wish we'd had it back home but we didn't have it.

At first I thought, well this is men with a lot of kilts and stuff and I liked it.

I couldn't stop coming back.

So every year I've been back since.

(Tyler) This is our 48th year but it's also our fourth year in Berea.

Every year we're trying to bring in something new.

In the last three years we brought in the Knights of Valor that does their full contact jousting.

♪ COUNTRY MUSIC ♪ (Laura) This is a really big game.

There's a huge band competition later and this is a really well known competition for the soloists too because they offer all the different events.

A lot of people don't realize there's lots of different types of bagpipe music and so it's kind of like a sporting event.

There's a 6'8" march competition and a 2'4" march competition and different events that you can enter.

I play in my fire department band down in Jacksonville, JFRD, Pipes and Drums.

It's become a big part of the fire service tradition here in America and I'm not on the fire department or anything but I love doing the civic services and the memorials and funerals and stuff like that.

So that's how I got into it.

Anyone who takes up the instrument becomes Scottish.

Anyone can do it.

Anybody can join this world that hasn't even if you're not Scottish and if you need a really rewarding hobby we're all here.

We'll be glad to talk to you about it and recruit you.

(Jeff) We definitely have people in the band who aren't Scottish.

Cincinnati is a very German town with German immigrants and I'm sure we have people with German ancestry but people hear the bagpipes and there's something about it that just piques their interest and we love that.

Anyone can join the band.

(Tyler) I'm 50-50 Irish Italian.

I'm Irish on my mother's side.

At 8 years old I came to festivals like this and I saw bagpipes and I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

The bagpipes specifically are an instrument that can't be put in a corner.

When you hear them it's going, they're evocative.

When you hear them they're going to make you feel something.

Whether that's joy, happiness, sadness if you ever went to a funeral or makes you think of a lost loved one or if it's a loud sound that you don't really like but the bagpipes will make you feel something.

They're loud.

And although they originate from Scotland, I, not being Scottish, I heard them and I thought I want to do that and I think so many people feel the same way and we as a festival try to cater to that as well.

-Are you actually Scottish or Irish?

(Kerry) Not one bit.

Cherokee and German but that's the beauty of this sport.

You do not have to be Scottish to participate.

You are more than welcomed in.

You're going to see a lot of camaraderie between all of the competitors out here.

Each one of us are trying to help each other technique wise, what we did wrong because the better the person I'm competing with is the better I'm going to get.

So it's a big friendly sport totally different in this sport than any other sport.

We like to have everybody in the sport so today we've got almost 30 novices out here which are people that's never done the sport ever.

(Neil) This is my first time ever, yeah.

So my friend who does and got me into it, he teaches North Olmsted track and he teaches throwing so he's been teaching me but yeah today's the first time I've ever picked anything up and thrown it.

(Jeff) And you'll see guys helping them out, trying to help them with technique, where to put your hands, what to do, what not to do.

It's just a really good group of people that come together for a common cause of just tossing heavy stuff.

-Everything's going good, going good.

I had some issues with the K-Bear but other than that I feel like I performed pretty well on all my flips.

Twilight Tattoo as we call it, other Highland games call it the massed bands where we have all of our 20 plus bands march out together of over 400 bagpipers and drummers and they'll all play together.

That is at the end of the band competition and that signals the unofficial closing of the game but it's a sight to see because it's over 400 bagpipers and drummers playing.

♪ BAGPIPES AND DRUMS ♪ We're just trying to get people here every day and every year cause we are trying to just keep growing this so this is our culture, we want to educate people and we also want to celebrate it.

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(Mary) We hope you've enjoyed this exploration of cultural exchange and how it can enhance our lives through the arts.

I'm Mary Paul and we'll see you again next week.