中国少数民族手工艺采风之旅在京正式启动

Zhu Zheqin (a.k.a. Dadawa) kicked-off Monday in Beijing her "Chinese Ethnic Handicraft Collection Tour," as part of her joint initiative with UNDP "Show the World."

        世界知名音乐艺术家、联合国开发计划署中国亲善大使朱哲琴（Dadawa）女士周一在北京正式发起“中国少数民族手工艺采风之旅”活动。该活动是她与联合国开发计划署共同发起的“世界看见”亲善行动的一部分。作为联合国开发计划署中国亲善大使，朱哲琴女士将通过保护濒临失传的珍贵的民族音乐和手工艺，以文化复兴带动并促进中国少数民族地区的发展。

       启动仪式上，朱哲琴女士详细介绍了2010年“世界看见”手工艺采风之旅的工作计划。她说：“此次采风之旅的主要目的是帮助少数民族地区开展手工艺品的品牌包装和市场推广。我将利用自身丰富的艺术工作经验，与亲善行动小组一道，通过与设计师、品牌和市场专业人士、文化企业和媒体的合作，帮助少数民族地区创造自己的市场品牌，将具有丰富文化内涵的手工艺品推向更广泛、更高端的市场。”

       在中国银行的支持下，中国少数民族手工艺采风之旅将由朱哲琴女士带领她的亲善行动工作团队，并汇集中国顶级设计师、行业专家和记者，奔赴云南、贵州、西藏、青海和内蒙古五个地区进行实地考察，探寻当地少数民族的文化遗产，对手工艺品的制作流程进行记载。

       在启动仪式的演讲中，联合国开发计划署驻华代表处副国别主任森本秋绘女士指出了采风之旅的双重意义。她说：“这次采风之旅不仅能够展示传统民族音乐和手工艺之美，还致力于加强少数民族地区和世界的沟通，有效地利用文化复兴的力量促进发展。”

       去年，朱哲琴女士和其亲善团队率先展开了中国少数民族音乐寻访之旅——“世界看见”中国少数民族文化保护与发展亲善行动的第一阶段活动。她们深入云南、内蒙、新疆、西藏、贵州等地进行实地考察——在两个月的旅途中，全部行程达20,000 多公里，共采集音乐样本1,000 余首，图片记录20,000 多张，影像记录15,000 分钟。收集的音乐样本将被整合录制成一套双CD专辑，并计划于2010年发布。“世界听·见·朱哲琴”世界巡演将会重点展示这些样本，为保护中国民族音乐，推动中国多元文化走向世界而努力。

       中国拥有世界上最多的少数民族人口，约一亿零六百万人。但是少数民族人口却占据了较高的贫困比例。全国贫困人口的52%是少数民族。然而，中国的文化财富大部分都源于这55个少数民族独特而多样的文化。这一点正是此次采风之旅依靠文化复兴推动发展的灵感来源。

Chinese Ethnic Handicraft Collection Tour kicks off in Beijing

World-renowned music artist and National Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) China, Ms. Zhu Zheqin (a.k.a. Dadawa) kicked-off Monday in Beijing her "Chinese Ethnic Handicraft Collection Tour," as part of her joint initiative with UNDP "Show the World." In her capacity as UNDP's national Goodwill Ambassador, Dadawa will promote culture-based development for ethnic minorities in China through preserving culturally invaluable ethnic music and handicrafts that are at risk of being lost.

Introducing the details of the "Show the World" handicraft collection tour working plan at the launching ceremony, Dadawa said: "The main objective of this project is to provide marketing and branding support to ethnic minority communities. Along with my team, I will leverage my extensive experience working in arts circles to bring together designers, marketing and branding professionals, cultural enterprises and the media to help minority communities to develop marketable brands, so that their culturally rich handicrafts reach wider and higher-end markets."

Supported by Bank of China, this innovative tour will lead Dadawa and her Goodwill Action team, together with A-list Chinese designers, industry experts and journalists, to conduct field visits to Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet, Qinhai and Inner Mongolia to explore local ethnic cultural heritages and record handicraft production process.

Silvia Morimoto, Deputy Country Director of UNDP China, in her address to the launch commented on the mutually beneficial nature of the tour's objective, saying "showcasing the beauty in traditional ethnic music and handicraft, enhancing communication between ethnic minority regions and the world, it effectively harnesses the power of culture revival as an engine for development."

Last year, Dadawa and her Goodwill Action team launched their Chinese Ethnic Music Collection Tour, another "Show the World" activity. They traveled 20,000 km to make field visits within Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Guizhou, collecting 1000 cultural music samples, recording over 20,000 photos and shooting over 15,000 minutes of video over the course of their two-month undertaking. The music samples collected will be compiled into a two-CD album, to be released in 2010. The samples will also be featured in Dadawa's coming world tour, aimed at preserving Chinese folk music while promoting the integration of China's diverse cultures into the modern world.

The inspiration for the tour's focus on culture-based development is that China has the world's biggest ethnic minority population, 106 million people, but this population is disproportionately poor. It represents 52 percent of China's entire population in poverty, yet China owes much of its cultural wealth to the unique diversity of its 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups.

(China.org.cn)