Our guest this week is Dr Celeste Snowber, Ph.D. - a dancer, writer and educator, who is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC.
Celeste has focused her work in the area of embodiment, spirituality, ecology and arts-based inquiry. She has written numerous essays and poetry in the areas of the arts, holistic education and curriculum studies as well as is author of Embodied Prayer which is in its second edition. Her most recent work has been exploring a poetics of embodiment through her essays, performance and poetry (she introduces us to one of her poems in this interview). Much of Celeste’s poetry explores the connections between the inner and outer landscapes of the natural world. She has published these poems in various journals as well as created site-specific performances outside which include dance and poetry in sites near the ocean.
Celeste lives on the outskirts of Vancouver with her 3 equally artistic boys!
Our guest this week is Armenian rap artist R-Mean, Armin Hariri. R-Mean grew up in Amsterdam and returned to his birth place, Los Angeles, at the age of 18. He then met his current producer, Blind, and together they formed the crew Pentagon.
As an extremely talented lyricist and songwriter, he manages to put all his life experiences in his music, as he “speaks the bottom of his heart from the top of his lungs.” As an independent artist he has sold over 13,000 records, has had airplay on major radio stations and has shared the stage with some of the biggest names in Hip Hop.
Hye-Eli looks forward to hearing more of R-Mean’s music.
Our guest this week is Armenian children’s singer, Taline!
A former pre-school teacher, Taline produced her debut DVD “Let’s Sing & Dance” in 2003 followed by ‘Let’s Play Together’ (2004), ‘A Christmas Concert’ (2005) and ‘Let’s Sing in Armenian’ (2006).
Taline talks to us about her beginnings as a children’s singer and her focus to produce high quality entertaining and educational programs for children in Armenian. Taline has a concert in LA on Sunday June 7 - please go to www.talinemusic.com for more information.
We hope you enjoy the interview. Please join us on June 17 when we’ll be talking with Armenian rap artist, R-Mean.
Welcome to Hye-Eli. Our guest today is Aret Madilian from the group Deleyaman.
Deleyaman is comprised of Aret Madilian, Beatrice Valantin, Gerard Madilian and Mia Bjorlingsson. The band was formed in Normandy, France in 2000 by Aret Madilian, the American-Armenian member of the band born in Istanbul, who grew up in Los Angeles and who now resides in France. A former member of a band from the L.A. post-punk scene whose debut album was recorded and produced by Spot, the producer and engineer of the influential punk label SST records (Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth).
The three other band members of Deleyaman are of various cultures and nationalities - Beatrice is French, Mia is Swedish and Gerard, well…a trubadour from a no man’s land.
The band has released three studio albums to date and has toured in Europe and the States.
Hope you enjoy the interview - please join us on June 3 when we will be talking to children’s singer Taline!
Ara Norenzayan is a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His areas of research interest include thought processes across cultures, the psychological foundations of culture and religion, issues of cultural variability and universality in human psychology, and relations between culture and evolution. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1999, where he did interdisciplinary graduate work in the Culture and Cognition Program of the Anthropology and Psychology Departments. Prior to UBC, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre de Recherche en Épistemologie Appliquée (CREA), École Polytechnique, Paris, after which he served on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. When not sailing, snowboarding, or plotting his next travel, he is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at UBC, and a Faculty Associate of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. He teaches cultural psychology, culture and cognition, social psychology, and introductory psychology.
If you have any comments regarding this interview or any other, please comment on our website or email us!
Please join us on May 20 when we will be talking to Aret Madilian from the group Deleyaman.
Our guest on Hye-Eli this week is Sara Cohan, the Education Director of The Genocide Education Project. The Genocide Education Project is a nonprofit organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing instructional materials, providing access to teaching resources and organizing educational workshops.
This is such an important project, the more educated people are about genocide, the more recognition and prevention there will be.
Our guest this week is storyteller and author Alidz Agbabian.
Agbabian specializes in Armenian and Middle Eastern oral traditions, bringing folk tales, myths, songs and legends to many communities nationwide and around the world. Based in Los Angeles, Agbabian offers classroom, library and museum presentations, residencies and teachers’ workshops, and develops special theme presentations for schools, exhibits, conventions and festivals. Known for her varied repertoire, she performs in a setting of cultural traditions, personal stories, artifacts, games and rhythmic speech that extends to the cultures of the Near East, the Mediterranean basin and the new Independent States (the former Soviet Union) in varied languages. As an author of children’s books, she has established Dziludzar Publications, which for the past dozen years has introduced high-quality, bilingual story books from the Armenian tradition to readers of all ages.
After a few months’ break, we are happy to be back with an interview with Koko Yaghdjian. I wanted to interview Koko because of his tireless volunteer work for the Armenian community in Vancouver, British Columbia, for over 30 years. He has been involved with the Armenian Cultural Association of B. C. since its inception, more or less and continues to work with enthusiasm, energy and unwavering passion for his culture and community.
Hye- Eli will be posting new interviews once every two weeks - we thought that this would be a more realistic goal for us to achieve while working on other projects.
We hope you enjoy this interview with Koko and please stay tuned for more interesting interviews to come (next interview will be aired on April 8).
Hye-Eli will be taking a break for a few months. It will be a maternity leave for me as we are expecting our second child early November.
Please email me at info@hye-eli.com if you have any suggestions of people to interview or some feedback about our previous shows. There are so many interesting individuals out there, my list of future interviewees is getting longer and I cannot wait to talk to these interesting people!
‘See you’ in a few months and until then, be well.
Hye-Eli’s guest today is Armenian-American musician, composer, recording artist, and producer Armen Chakmakian. I first came across Armen’s name while listening to the first Buddha Bar collection, an album I love and listen to frequently. The second time I came across Armen’s name was after I joined OneArmenia and couldn’t resist contacting him and asking him for an interview.
Armen was the keyboardist for the GRAMMY award-winning band Shadowfax, their 1992 CD, “Esperanto” was nominated for a Best New Age Album GRAMMY Award. He has released two solo albums on his label TruArt Records: “Ceremonies” (1998); “Caravans” (2004). Two tracks from Ceremonies, Gypsy Rain and Distant Lands, also appear on the famed “Buddha Bar” and “Buddha Bar IV” compilation albums, respectively.
Armen’s albums also feature world-renowned oudist and composer John Bilezikjian as well as Djivan Gasparyan.
He continues to compose and perform his own concerts as well as other artists and productions. In 2006 Armen toured South America with Cirque du Soleil’s show, Saltimbanco.
It was a pleasure to talk with Armen and he is an extremely talented and true musician in every sense of the word!
Stay tuned for another great interview next week with Koko (Greg) Yaghdjian of Vancouver, BC - a place which has become my home.
