A quality show is a great way to spend an evening.  Tonight I saw an amazing one, the Lakota Sioux Dance Theatre,  a troupe of Native American dancers who perform traditional and fancy tribal dancing.

The company, founded in 1978 on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, is directed by Henry Smith.   It shows their culture through music, dance, ritual and presentation.  To hear and see this gorgeous representation in real time with colorful regalia and native language was not only engaging, but emotionally stirring.

I didn’t get a chance to double-check their names, unfortunately, as there were so many people pushing to talk to them and get pictures, but here are two of the dancers.

I can't believe I didn't get their names! If you know them, please tell me in the comments.

The gentleman on the right was our narrator for the evening.  He introduced everyone at the end (that’s where I lost track).   I swear he said his name was Edward, but I’m not sure.  That’s what I will call him for convenience’s sake.  Please, someone correct me if you know their proper names!

I'm pretty sure I got this one right. Left to right, singer Adrian Cross and dancer Jocy Bird

Some, like the Eagle and the Buffalo dances, were pretty obvious due to the outfits; others, not so much.  I was fortunate to be sitting next to a Lakota storyteller and singer named John Two Bears, who was able to tell me some of what I was seeing.

If you’ve never seen Native American dancing, at first it looks a bit disjointed and random.  Watch closely and you see rhythms and movements that have purpose.  Every step, every shuffle and change of direction has something to say.  The sneak, a crouching motion like tracking, shows the scouting of enemies.  In one dance, two warriors sneaked and then erupted into a fierce battle with prop spears.  Watching, I could feel the aggression of battle.

The women performed a light, hopping synchronous thing John told me was a butterfly dance.   They wore jingling metal cones on their medicine dresses, 365 in all, one for each day of the year.  He said there was one hidden for leap year, but I don’t know about that!

The Navajo dancer did a hoop dance.  He picked up hoops and put his body through and around them, making shapes like a bird, a bear, etc.   I counted eleven hoops, but John said the most he’s seen was thirty-two!   You can see a lady doing it here at an elementary school, although it’s usually done by men.

My favorite was a storm dance. I didn’t need any help interpreting this one, since the staging included the flash of simulated lightning and a bit of video as well.  As the dancer ducked and waved at the lightning, I found myself feeling a bit of the raw power of nature as it clattered and boomed around the thinly sheltered people, out on the prairie so long ago.  How disconnected we are from it now, and how sad that is.

Throughout, the rhythm of the drums, interspersed with Edward’s narration, Adrian’s flute playing and prayers to the Creator wove a mysterious, otherworldly spell.  The smell of burning sage and silhouettes of feathered bustles against a changing colored backdrop of projected images.  The jingle of bells on the ankles of some of the dancers.  Voices uplifted in song, touching the hearts of the audience.  John knew a lot of the songs and could sing along.  I envied him.

The audience clapped enthusiastically at first, but as the show went on, they began to add shouts and cheers to their applause.  When Edward brought the eagle feather standard out, John stood up long before he exhorted the audience to do the same, as he sang a song for veterans.  It was a respectful moment.  The prayer for the people, who had fallen away from their Creator, put a lump in my throat.
At the end of the show, the company received a well-deserved standing ovation.  Henry Smith said there would be a DVD out in about five weeks, available through the website, of the show we had just seen.  He apologized that it wasn’t ready that night.  It’s on my list of purchases.  I exhort you to go see this company if they come to your area.

Kitsch –noun

something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kitsch

In case you can't see, they say from the top down, "Bread, Cheese, Stinky" (an onion).

Is this kitsch?  Yes I think it is.  It’s cute.   I grew up with this in my mother’s kitchen, and now it’s in mine.  Please ignore the pukey green wall.  I have been here since 2002 and haven’t mustered the energy to paint the world’s ugliest kitchen.

Most people think of kitsch as bad art, with a sentimental element.  The word comes from the German kitschen, or to throw together, referring to a work of art.  Decorative objects you would find in your grammy’s house, like the big-eyed puppy and kid portraits so popular in the 1960s, is kitsch.

Ahh God, make it stooooppp...

If you saw the movie The Goonies, you might remember the David statue on the coffee table, the one that suffered an unfortunate amputation and subsequent reattachment.  That too, is kitsch.

Some of this stuff is collectible in a big way.  A few years back there was a big move toward vintage decorating, and people were snapping up paint-by-number pictures from flea markets and garage sales and actually displaying them in their homes.  I remember these things, did quite a few myself.  I really don’t think they were good enough for THAT.

I don’t really know what I wanted to say about kitsch.  either you love it, or you can’t stand it.  I find myself defending it because of the Bread/Cheese/Stinky apple things.  It’s not really art, but it makes us think about it.  We look at it and desire to feast our starving eyes on real art, like this:

Woman in Black at the Opera (1878) Mary Cassatt

I love this painting.  Cassatt was a female Impressionist painter, in a world where women did not have art careers and were not encouraged to leave the house.  Many of her paintings are of women and children, domestic scenes, and genteel people.  I was privileged to see her painting The Boating Party in person at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.  No one can understand what it means to stand before an actual painting by your favorite artist until they experience it.

The best part of this picture is the man in the background.  As the lady looks at the opera, he is looking at her.  Hee hee.

Anybody have anything in their house that is kitsch?  Send me a picture of it; I’ll make a kitsch gallery from the best examples.  Or the ones that make me laugh the hardest.

This is only one tier of this four-shelved cheapo baker’s rack I bought at ALDI.  I have Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens (seen here), assorted pamphlets and booklets ranging from a Gold Medal flour cookbook from 1910 to a recent issue of Reminisce with a delicious sausage and potato recipe.  I have a Jack Benny Jello premium recipe pamphlet, a Riceland Rice one with a horribly racist cartoon of a little Chinese guy, and a really interesting one with all the foods from the Little House books.  No, really.

Cookbooks are hugely popular.  They get on the bestseller list.  Whenever I go into the library, I see them on the New Arrivals shelf.  Someone, somewhere will always need the perfect baked zucchini a la Parmesan for a fancy dinner, or Henry VIII’s Turkey Legs for their Tudor-themed party, or to know how to eat like a celebrity.

My cookbooks are a little slice of life from each era.  Reading them is fascinating.  The 1910 Gold Medal flour cookbook is very different from any of the others.  It refers to things I’ve never heard of.  I had to read it several times before I figured out what “forcemeat” was.  (It is bits of leftover meat forced through a sieve to mince it for making meatballs or croquettes.  The Victorians wasted nothing.  Get your mind out of the gutter!)

Back then, they didn’t write recipes, or receipts as they were known, the way they do now.  I searched for twenty agonizing minutes and I can’t remember where I put the book, so here is an example I found on the Internet:

POTATO SOUP.

Now this soup is made of left over meat and the bones of roasts, put them on in cold water and boil slowly; you may also add a little fresh meat; then dice some potatoes, strain the stock and return to the stove, put in the potatoes and some rice, boil until tender, then heat a little grease and fry onions until glazed, add a little flour, brown with onions in grease, then pour the soup into this hot mixture, and let it come to a boil. That is fine.

UM, OKAY YEAH.  To modern people used to precise measurements and temperatures, this is nearly incomprehensible.  Add cooking it on a wood stove and it gives you some idea of what being a housewife must have been like back then.

The Better Homes and Gardens series of illustrated cookbooks that came out in the 1960s and 1970s is an exercise in overdone excess.  There was a book for everything— one on cooking for two, one for cheese, meat, fish, salad, and so on.  I’ve found darn near all of them at the flea market.

Betty Crocker is the queen of the cookbooks.  She’s been plying her kitchen magic since 1921 as a cheerful fictional mascot for the General Mills corporation.   Yes, it’s true; Betty isn’t real.  No worries.  Her Dinner for Two, Pot Luck Meals and the ever-fabulous Cooky Book will still hold a revered place in family kitchens for years to come.

So far I’ve only cooked hasty pudding from The Little House Cookbook, rice cakes from the Riceland one and a fantabulous lasagna from some Italian thing that’s my fallback impressive dish.   I suppose if I ever move I’ll have to cull some of them, but I’m not looking forward to it.

Many of the older books aren’t very healthy by today’s standards.  Fried foods, Crisco, cheese and a ton of butter abound.  Funny how we’re so much fatter now.  Perhaps these recipes had more flavor, so we didn’t eat as much.  Or, and I think this more likely, when we had time to cook our dinners and eat them sitting at the table, there was less mindless eating.

Food is what brings people together.  It’s how people connect.   Food is the ultimate icebreaker and the best way to get to know another culture.  As a writer, you can use meals to show the closeness or strain of a family.  You can show the fish-out-of-water traveler facing an exotic dish, or how capable his companion who knows what fork to use.

Have a favorite dinner scene from a book or movie?  Do you enjoy collecting cookbooks yourself?  Can’t stand to go near the kitchen?  Feel free to share in the comments.