Help!

Hey, cool kids!

Can anyone help me figure out how to make my last name show up (as well as my first name) when I post and comment?

Thanks!

Every Last Bit...

So let’s say I’m making brownies. I pull out the box, pour

the mix in the bowl, add the oil and water, then crack

open the eggs and run my fingers along the inside to make sure all the egg white is out…. That last bit I don’t even think about. I've been doing it for so long that it is ingrained in my muscle memory, a reflex. I never thought about this simple action’s significance until my mom shared a story as part of a talk or testimony in sacrament meeting. I’ve forgotten the context in which it was shared, but I remember the details.This action that I had learned by echoing my mother, she had learned by echoing her mother, and my grandmother had learned by echoing her mother.

My great grandmother was raising several children during the great depression. They were poor and all lived in a one room shack. When they had an egg, or another food, they made sure to use all of it.

This policy of using all of something is not unique to my family (I think there’s something in the Boy Scout handbook about using anything you kill); it's a fairly common practice when resources are low.

The Plains Indians of North America lived off of buffalo. The hide was used as clothing or for shelter, in the form of tipis, the meat for food, the bones for weapons, and the list keeps going(scroll to the bottom of the page if you follow this). It was their life-force and they took what the needed and used every part of the body.

Another people, the Bushmen of the Kalahari dessert, learned to survive during the long months without rain and a constant shortage of food. Whatever food they acquired was used to its full capacity. They drank the water in melons, ate the pulp, and used the rind as a bowl. Ostrich eggs were eaten, and the shells used for containers or decorative beads. Roots were dug up and used as a source of water, and every drop of liquid was squeezed out and ingested. The parts of the animals they caught were all used in a fashion very similar to that of the Plains Indians; the meat is eaten, the liquid inside is used for water, bones are used for tools, the hide used for clothing etc. (resource: The Harmless People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas)

This type of folk knowledge is first acquired out of necessity, but bits and parts can linger long after the initial need has passed. Some of our odd habits have been passed down through generations, the original reasons barely remembered or completely forgotten, but the reasons are there. Ask your parents or grandparents about some of your quirky habits sometime. You might find out that they have more meaning than you thought.

Buon Appetito!

Why does eating together brings families closer?

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table." Ronald Regan

When I say "Dinner!" you think ... ? Sudden images of food and family together seem to come to mind, but what is it about food and family? Why do LDS activities almost always involve a refreshment? If there is a connection, wouldn't watching TV together have the same effect?

Ice-y Folk

When I started college, I learned there are certain kinds of folk knowledge that I am missing. Let me explain. After spending most of my life in a place like this:

I found myself living in a place like this:

My first experience living in a place with snow was... amusing, to say the least. Let's just say there are certain things that I take for granted. Take the liquidity of water, for instance. One Saturday morning I went out to my car only to find it covered in a layer of snow and ice. I happened to have a glass of water in my hand (I was quite thirsty), so after knocking away the worst of the snow, I thought I'd just melt the remaining layer of ice by pouring water over it. That clear, flowing fountain of water poured from my cup and transmogrified before my eyes into more ice. Oops.

Those who dwell in a winter wonderland a few months out of the year have folk knowledge we desert rats can hardly imagine. The proper way to deal with an iced over car, the knowledge of driving more slowly when the road is fast filling with blankets of snow, the proper technique of shoveling off a driveway, what to wear when temperatures drop below freezing—these are things I had to learn my freshman year.

To put my difficulties into perspective,

I read up on the Inuit, who live in the frigid Arctic. They had to develop ways to survive in temperatures well below those of a comparatively mild Provo winter. Everything from finding food in a place without plants to building shelter in a terrain without trees was knowledge gained and passed down from generation to generation.

It makes me wonder: what knowledge will we pass down to the next generation? We have no skills such as igloo building or ivory carving. We don't have to teach our children where to find game in the summer months or where to find whales in the winter. Skills like blogging are hardly necessary for survival. Will our children learn anything really useful from us? If so, what?

Folk knowledge--a pedagogical genealogy

What do you think of when you think of harp music? Tinkling arpeggios? Beautiful melodies? Luscious glissandos? Does it maybe sound a little like this? (Start at 3:35.)

This piece, Henriette Renie’s “Contemplation,” epitomizes French harp music of the mid-19th-century. French composers, performers, and teachers like Henriette Renie were vital to the development of the modern harp repertoire.

Many of the most skilled performers and teachers in mid-19th-century France taught and learned at the Paris Conservatoire. Henriette Renie studied at the Paris Conservatoire with her teacher, Alphonse Hasselmans. Alphonse Hasselmans studied at the Conservatoire with his teacher, Ange-Conrad Prumier (Oxford Music Online: “Hasselmans: (2) Alphonse Hasselmans; must be logged into Oxford Music Online through the HBLL website to view). Through this pedagogical genealogy, harp teaching and learning was passed from teacher to student, teacher to student.

This pedagogical line extends into the present. I am the product of this very line of pedagogical genealogy. Renie’s most famous student, and the one to whom she entrusted the continuation of her famous method, was Susann McDonald, and Susann McDonald was my harp professor at Indiana University.

Miss McDonald helped me play pieces that Renie composed. By following her advice, I played Renie’s pieces (including “Contemplation”!) exactly the way Renie herself taught Miss McDonald to play them. In this way, folk knowledge of playing “Contemplation” has passed through several pedagogical generations: from Henriette Renie, through Miss Susann McDonald, and on to me, Holland Hettinger Denny. Ask for my autograph--you’ll need it later ;).

The Definitive Dance

One syllable: dance. Two syllables: ballet. Three syllables: my favorite.

The living, breathing, ever-evolving art of ballet never ceases to amaze me. From its beginning in Renaissance Italy as a means to entertain the court to modern productions by American Ballet Theatre, the history of ballet serves as a definitive example of the power of folk knowledge to sculpt the arts. And ballet has truly been sculpted.

When ballet first made an appearance in the royal courts during the 1400s', ballet dancers typically looked like this:  

A member of the Louis Ballet (1400s')

Your eyes aren't fooling you. That's a man. In heels. Doing ballet. Though mention of the word "ballet" now often conjures an image a woman wearing a platter tutu in pointe shoes, the original ballerinas were men. In fact, women didn't even perform in professional ballets until 1681 (see History of Ballet ). Prior to this date, men would fill women's roles, similar to Shakespearean plays of the day.

Besides who danced ballets, the concept of ballet has changed as costumes, scenery, show format, and hardware has evolved with the changing times. For example, as Marie Camargo sought to show off her astounding leaps, she traded in the traditional ballet heels for a softer shoe, much like the flexible ballet slippers found in classrooms today.

Ballet West presents Sleeping Beauty (2011)

Even though ballet has evolved as a living art, technique and original choreography from ballets conceived as early as the early 1800s' has been preserved through the centuries. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a series of presentations called Ballet West first look. As a part of first look, students from local dance studios such as myself were allowed to watch the dress rehearsals of upcoming Ballet West productions as well as learn facts about that particular production. During the first look for Balanchine's Three Preludes, Peter Christie (head of Educational Outreach at Ballet West) mentioned how happy the company was to bring in world-renown choreographers to teach Ballet West the original choreography. They were excited.

And it is exciting. It's exciting that Ballet West can perform dances created for Balanchine's company. It's exciting that the ballet technique of 1800 is the ballet technique of 2011. It's exciting that through every change made to the presentation of ballet, the dance itself has remained unscathed.

Young girls begin their first ballet class

That's what I love about the grand folk knowledge that is ballet. Dancers everywhere can connect to dancers of the past by learning the same steps as them. What began as a lavish form of entertainment, reserved only for royalty can now be taught to masses of five year old girls in frilly, pink tutus world-wide. Ballet is everywhere, and for everyone. Now that's the power of folk knowledge.