Here's the text of the story I submitted to the Creativity Contest, with indications of where the images go. From Bukhara to Brooklyn and Beyond (bukh01bothupper.jpg) "Culture and Music" Prologue: 1983 On the wall of my high school Russian classroom hangs a poster of a dancing woman. Holding what looks like a tambourine, she has long, long braids and is dressed in a coat, skirt and trousers in vividly contrasting patterns and colors. With the slogan "Welcome to Soviet Tadzhikistan!" over her head and the Aeroflot logo at her feet, she smiles out from the wall, floating free of context in my mind until years later.... (bukh02dancerfull.jpg) Roma and Alla Although they didn't meet until adulthood, both Roman Mulloqandov (Roma to his friends) and Alla Issakova grew up in drab Khruschev-era apartment buildings on the outskirts of the ancient city of Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Artistically talented Bukharan-- that is, Central Asian-- Jews, both developed their gifts under the restrictive but well-funded Soviet cultural system. The crumbling of that system brought them halfway around the world to Queens, New York City (okay, not really Brooklyn, but I couldn't resist the alliteration)-- but that's getting ahead of the story. bukh03bothfull.jpg Alla showed promise as a dancer from an early age, standing out from her classmates in the folk dances they learned at school and at Pioneer camp. A talent scout from the elite Central Bukhara School of the Arts noticed her in a visit to a holiday assembly, and at age 10, Alla became part of a small group of children who would receive intensive dance training, along with their regular studies, to prepare for careers as performers. At the School of the Arts, Alla mastered the complex rhythms, poses and precise hand and arm gestures of the classical Central Asian dance tradition. bukh04dancerfull.jpg After finishing her schooling, Alla joined a company of fourteen dancers and musicians who toured throughout the Soviet Union. Performing in gritty provincial cities and isolated collective farms was far from glamorous, and Alla missed her family and the close-knit Jewish community of Bukhara during the long trips away from home. Still, she felt lucky for the opportunity to dance for a living and happy to be perfecting her art under the guidance of the senior troupe members. Indeed, Alla herself began to be looked up to by the junior dancers as she gained experience during twelve years with the touring company. bukh05dancertopback.jpg Roma was born into a family of musicians. From his father, uncles and grandfather he learned to play the tambourine-like doira and sing in Bukharian, a dialect of Farsi mixed with Hebrew and (more recently) Russian [and even more recently English]. Roma's talent was also developed at special school programs and at the Tashkent Conservatory, where he received training in the Western as well as Central Asian musical traditions. After graduating from the Conservatory, Roma returned to Bukhara to take a position as instructor in the music division at the Institute of Traditional Arts. bukh06musicianfull.jpg Despite his broad training, Roma's artistic base remained with his family, who among trusted friends could perform songs banned from the official Soviet repertoire because of their religious or nationalistic themes. Roma played with his father and uncles at weddings and holiday celebrations as well as in concerts, carefully heating his doira over open flames to bring its goatskin drumhead to the proper level of tension before each song. As he became established as a musician in the Bukharan Jewish community, Roma met Alla and began to perform with her when she was home from her tours. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, a trying period began. Uzbekistan was spared the interethnic violence-- including some specifically targeted at Jews-- suffered by neighboring Tadjikistan, but it experienced a severe economic crisis. State funding for the arts withered, and the members of Alla's dance company were forced to stop touring and take whatever jobs they could find in Bukhara to supplement their small income as performers. With inflation cutting his academic salary to a pittance, Roma too realized that he would soon not be able to make ends meet. Eventually, both Roma and Alla made the difficult decision to leave Uzbekistan. After numerous delays, they secured visas for themselves and their families and settled in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York. bukh07bothback.jpg When they first arrived in New York City, Roma took a job driving a taxi and Alla found work as a waitress in one of the restaurants that served as gathering places for many of the over 40,000 Bukharan Jews living in Queens.They soon made connections in the community, forming an ensemble with three other musicians and one dancer, and obtained an engagement for one night a week at the restaurant where Alla worked. Nonetheless, it was nearly three years before they were sufficiently established as performers, playing weddings and Bar Mitzvahs in the emigre community as well as at restaurants, that they were able to once again devote themselves full-time to their art. bukh08bothfull.jpg In time, Roma and Alla's ensemble gained a reputation beyond the Bukharan community. They performed at schools, concert halls and festivals throughout the New York area, at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC-- where these pictures were taken-- and even as far away as the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, on the Pacific coast. Alla and Roma were firmly established in their new country, sharing the culture of a part of the world most Americans rarely thought about-- if they had heard of it at all. bukh09smithsonian.jpg But then that changed.... Epilogue: 2001 I was inspired to make these figures, and to learn more about Bukharan Jews, when I heard the Queens-based ensemble Shashmaqam perform at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival this past July. Since September, this focus on Central Asian culture has taken on a different meaning for me, as has the image of a dancing Central Asian woman. I won't elaborate because whatever I could say would sound trite. bukh10bothbackfull.jpg A few links One source of information on Bukharan Jews is http://www.bukharianjews.com The Shashmaqam ensemble's CD is described at http://www.folkways.si.edu/40054.htm#checkout One organization working with Central Asian women can be found at http://www.globalfundforwomen.org Sources Parts of this story, and of the figures' costumes are based on information found at the first two web sites listed above, at the 2001 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and in the children's book "We Live in the Asian U.S.S.R." by Evgenii Ryabko (New York: Bookwright Press, 1985). All errors of fact are mine. All of the persons and organizations in this story are fictional with the exception of the Smithsonian Institution and the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. Copyright 2001 by Judith R. Miller. All rights reserved.