We’ve had our Black Friday and Cyber Monday fix now it’s time for #GivingTuesday! On #GivingTuesday, people and communities around the world will come together for one common purpose: to give. It’s a global movement that unites the world for good.
Let’s get together and make a difference in the lives of others!
Positive Legacy has chosen the Deer Dance Project as our focus for #GivingTuesday. This project will give the financial support needed to the people of Santa Cruz, Belize to conduct the Deer Dance, a four-day community dance festival highlighting traditional marimba musicians and dancers of all ages in the community in December 2015. This project will also fund the audio and video documentation of the dance, along with editing and dissemination on Ak’ K’utan Radio, a community radio station of and for the Maya people. Lastly, it will fund the production and printing of a workbook for students, explaining the significance, both past and present, of the Deer Dance, documenting the many stages and movements of the dance for students to learn as part of their school curriculum.
Every year Positive Legacy joins Cloud 9 Adventures on Jam Cruise, a one-of-a-kind music and vacation experience featuring 5 days of music aboard a luxurious cruise ship. Jam Cruise visits two ports on our voyage. This year we are visiting Mexico and Belize. Positive Legacy strives to connect musicians and fans on Jam Cruise to the local culture and invest in a community requested project in one of the countries we have the pleasure of visiting. This year the people of Santa Cruz, Belize applied for a grant to help keep tradition alive for the younger generations. Santa Cruz is the site of the ongoing struggle to maintain customary land rights by the Maya communities. This struggle is complicated by an ongoing history of environmental degradation through the extraction of hardwoods, cattle and citrus farming and oil prospecting, all of which threaten traditional Maya land use and livelihoods. This project addresses the maintenance of Maya environmental and cultural heritage traditions against this backdrop of multiple threats. It grew from the community’s desire to both maintain complex skills and traditions, including the playing of the marimba and learning the complexities of the dance, and to both make these skills relevant to the community’s youth and teach them the new and complimentary skills of documentation and dissemination.
A $13,500 grant from Positive Legacy will allow for the training and rehearsal of a newer generation of Deer Dancers and musicians, as well as the training of the video production team. The equipment provided will enable Ak’ K’utan Radio to offer additional courses at a reduced cost and classes will be supported through Tumul K’in Center of Learning’s operating budget. Having the video, audio and workbook as tangible results of this project will allow the community to document and demonstrate their skills for future generations to learn and experience, and for potential funders including both local and international organizations interested in supporting environmental and cultural heritage preservation, the arts, capacity building and education.
Help us Preserve Mayan Tradition for Generations to come!