Daily Archives: June 9, 2022

As the queer community continues to evolve, so does the language used to describe it. (Credit: Getty images)

Once upon a time, four letters were commonly used to describe the queer community as a whole: "L" for lesbian, "G" for gay, "B" for bisexual and "T" for trans, creating an acronym: LGBT.

But that was then, and this is now. As new terminologies, identities and experiences appear in the zeitgeist, the acronym has since picked up a few more letters: "Q" for queer and/or questioning, "I" for intersex and "A" for asexual, creating the widely used acronym: "LGBTQIA+" with that "+" on the end meant to cover anyone who feels their queer identity was not otherwise represented.

The alphabet soup can be a lot to swallow for some (including Lea DeLaria, who's poked fun in the past about the ever-growing acronym), and some prefer to stick to "LGBTQ" or "LGBTQ+" or even, simply, "queer" (DeLaria's choice). But there is a reason and history behind its existence.

Before the rise of the acronym, people often simply said, "the gay community" or "the gay and lesbian community" which left out bisexual people, who make up the majority of the LGBTQIA+ population as a whole, and transgender people, a group that is largely credited for spearheading the queer-rights movement to begin with. Sometime in the the 1970s, queer activists popularized usage of the "LGB" acronym as a way to display unity. The "T" was later added, in the 1990s, meant to be a further step toward inclusion.

More recently, the letter "Q" was added as a way to acknowledge those exploring their gender or sexual identity, or those who don't identify with any of the first four letters, preferring "queer."

Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, the worlds largest media advocacy organization for LGBTQ (the acronym used by GLAAD) rights, tells Yahoo Life the evolution of the acronym represents the community's "growth, strength and vitality, and our future," adding that as more people of different experiences and backgrounds come out now including those who identify with a range of terms, including nonbinary and xenogender in record numbers, its important to see that reflected in changing terms and acronyms.

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The LGBTQIA+ acronym, seen on a sign here in Paris earlier this month, has become a global go-to. (Photo: Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Whichever acronym is used, knowing the basics of these terms is important to understand the complexities of the queer experience. Heres a quick overview:

Lesbian: A woman who is physically, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to other women.

Gay: A word that describes a person who is physically, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to people of the same sex or gender.

Bisexual (also Bi or Bi+): A person with the capacity to be physically, romantically and/or emotionally attracted to more than one gender, though not necessarily at the the same time or to the same degree.

Transgender: A people whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. They may also use other terms, in addition to transgender, to describe their gender more specifically such as nonbinary or gender nonconforming. (Others can be found in GLAADs Transgender Glossary.)

Queer: Often embraced by younger generations, "queer" is used to describe an identity that is not heterosexuality, or exclusive to one particular thing. People who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or anything else, may also embrace the "queer" label, as more singular labels may be perceived as too limiting.

Questioning: A word used to describe people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Intersex: A person with one or more innate sex characteristics like genitals, internal reproductive organs and chromosomes that fall outside of traditional conceptions of male or female bodies. Their male or female gender identity is typically assigned at birth by medical providers and/or parents. Sometimes, controversially, that decision involves surgically altering genitalia to match this decision.

Asexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction. Sometimes shortened to "ace," it's also an umbrella term that can include other identities such as demisexual, which refers to those who do not experience sexual attraction to others unless they form a strong emotional bond with them first.

Definitions aside, its important to understand that each term may mean something different to different people, based on their own lived experiences.

Bottom line? There's no one way to be L, G, B, T, Q, I or A. What is important, however, Ellis explains, is to know the language first, in order to acknowledge and celebrate differences. Asking people how they describe themselves (including what their pronouns are) is equally as important.

During a time when the queer community is under constant attack by state lawmakers across the country, Ellis says it has never been more vital for the country to learn about the importance of language and unity.

LGBTQ[IA+] people are part of the most diverse community in the world, representing different sexual orientations and genders, as well as all races, religions and from all regions, she says. Language signals solidarity within the community and to everyone outside of it that we are different and still united in our fight for freedom and equality for all.

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What is LGBTQIA+? The acronym for the queer community keeps evolving. - Yahoo Life

When My Chemical Romance broke out with 2004sThree Cheers for Sweet Revenge, I didnt notice. A junior in high school, I was too busy listening to Radiohead, Dr. Dre, or the Broadway musicalRent, depending on what group of friends I was trying to fit in with at the time. And by the release of the the zeitgeist shattering followup, 2006sThe Black Parade,I was somewhere off at college, mismanaging my study time whilelost in a cloud of bong smoke.

Every music lover has blind spots, and every budding critic tries to fill in the gaps as they go. However, by the time I earned my first bylines, My Chemical Romance had already gone on hiatus. There were more pressing gaps to fill, even as I tried to keep up with the dozens of new albums released every month.

But as the now-legacy rockers began to assemble for a much-delayed reunion tour earlier this spring, I decided the time had come. I waited until my one-year-old was napping, popped on my best headphones, and listened to The Black Paradefor the first time.

Uh, holy shit. This album rules.

The Black Paradeopens with The End. and the sound of a hospital heart rate monitor as The Patient slides inexorably towards death. Now, come one, come all to this tragic affair, Gerard Way begins by way of invitation. Wipe off that makeup, whats in is despair.

The words brought back a high school memory: one of my goth buddies mocking the emo kids for their theatrical anguish, as if the only way you should be allowed to wear black eyeliner is if your music had growls instead of singing.

That same friend spent most of his free time rapping every word to Limp Bizkits Nookie, in case you had any illusions about his taste. Now, almost 20 years later, I could appreciate the sly humor of, Wipe off that makeup, whats in is despair, and the playfulness of opening an album with The End.

My Chemical Romances rock opera ambitions are on full display with the album anchor, Welcome to the Black Parade. A multi-movement musical suite, it kicks off with tender piano as The Patient recalls their fathers words about death or as the album would have it, joining the Black Parade. Marching drums transform into pummeling percussion as the first movement builds to a cacophonous climax, before the song enters its second, irresistibly catchy act. Well carry on, is a rousing anthem, even followed with, And though youre dead and gone, believe me/ Your memory will carry on.

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A 35-Year-Old Man Listens to My Chemical Romances The Black Parade for the First Time - Consequence

The hectic rhythms of this age are not those of an Anton Chekhov play. Yet the Russian writer is very much in evidence right now.

More consumed with questions than with answers, Chekhovs plays depict human beings rather than heroes or villains. Life is captured in plots in which not much seems to happen yet by the end everything is changed.

All of this runs counter to our sensation-seeking, moralizing, politically divisive zeitgeist. But theater artists, filmmakers and novelists, drawn to the interior richness of Chekhovs dramas, have discovered not only the timeliness of his untimely work but also its aesthetic pliancy and openness.

Suddenly, Chekhov seems to be everyones favorite collaborator. And many of us are beginning to remember that, despite our differences, were still at heart introspective Chekhovian characters.

Chelsea Kurtz and Hugo Armstrong in Uncle Vanya at Pasadena Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

A new production of Uncle Vanya is underway at Pasadena Playhouse under the direction of Michael Michetti. The translation, a partnership between playwright and director Richard Nelson and the veteran team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, had its 2018 premiere at San Diegos Old Globe in a supple, compact and exquisitely intimate production that made it seem as if we were eavesdropping on the characters.

I doubted after that revival that I would ever again have such an emotionally intense experience of Uncle Vanya, but then I saw Drive My Car, this years Oscar winner for international feature film. Co-written and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the movie (streaming on HBO Max) is adapted from Haruki Murakamis story of the same title from his collection Men Without Women. Chekhovs play figures prominently and gives the film its soul.

The protagonist, Kafuku, is a middle-aged actor mourning the death of his unfaithful wife. Hes been invited to direct Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima, a city resurrected from ashes. Kafuku, a shell of his former self, has performed the role of Vanya before and learned his lines through a tape his wife prepared of the script. Revisiting Chekhov in Hiroshima slowly brings him back to life.

Hamaguchi directs with exemplary restraint. The storys movement is subterranean. We observe a haunted Kafuku conducing rehearsals; we listen along as he replays his ghostly Vanya tape in the car to and from the theater; and we watch him reluctantly open up to his young female driver, who also happens to be drowning in complicated grief. Together they enact offstage the meaning of Chekhovs play.

Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tko Miura in the movie Drive My Car.

(The Match Factory)

Uncle Vanya has been described as Chekhovs most spiritual work. Vanya, a middle-aged manager of his familys country estate, and Sonya, his unmarried niece, have sacrificed themselves for the sake of Serebryakov, Sonyas father, who was married to Vanyas beloved dead sister. A crotchety retired professor, Serebryakov has returned with Elena, his stunningly beautiful and much younger second wife, throwing the households dull routine into chaos.

Vanya falls under Elenas spell, as does Astrov, the doctor with a passion for both environmentalism and vodka whom Sonya unrequitedly loves. Rejected as a lover by Elena and enraged when Serebryakov announces that he wants to put the estate up for sale, Vanya feels that he has wasted his life. His anger, once farcically discharged, turns inward and his thoughts are set on death. The play is a study in learning to bear failure and futility, if not for oneself then for those loved ones, like lonely Sonya, who has enough sorrow without the addition of her uncles suicide.

Surviving disillusionment without succumbing to despair, persevering after dreams have been shattered, finding the will to keep going when all that appears ahead is a succession of monotonous days Uncle Vanya, now that I think of it, may be the perfect play for our pandemic-scarred moment.

Gary Shteyngart recognizes this connection in his recent novel Our Country Friends, which takes place just as COVID-19 is sweeping the world. Set in a private bungalow-colony in New Yorks Hudson Valley where a group of friends has holed up during the pandemic, the book, which includes a backyard performance of Uncle Vanya, is Chekhovian in its essential framework.

The dramatis personae of the novel are listed at the start, with shorthand descriptions normally reserved for plays. Sasha, a novelist worried about the fate of a television deal that would allow him to hold on to his bohemian country property, and his psychiatrist wife, Masha, are the Russian-born hosts of an extended reunion that brings to the fore questions of endurance. How, the novel asks, can the characters move forward with a modicum of grace in the wake of betrayal, defeat and the suffering that is inherent in the human condition?

The tragic poet writes from a sense of crisis, the distinguished drama critic Eric Bentley contended. The comic poet is less apt to write out of a particular crisis than from that steady ache of misery which in human life is even more common than crisis and so a more insistent problem.

In a magnificently Chekhovian aside, Bentley adds, When we get up tomorrow morning, we may well be able to do without our tragic awareness for an hour or two but we shall desperately need our sense of the comic.

Catastrophe, as many of us have come to realize during these difficult last years, offers no protection from the assaults of daily living. Even in a deadly pandemic, pets get sick, couples break up, heart attacks occur and fender-benders ruin an afternoon.

With his compassionate humor, Chekhov neither indicts his characters nor lets them off the hook for their myopic concerns. His plays are a tonic reminder to artists across disciplines that lives are lived not in headlines but in passing moments. Big things occur in Chekhov. Houses are lost, guns occasionally go off and people die. But the focus is on muddling through.

Chekhovs artistic vision offers a corrective to the Twitter metabolism of our increasingly virtual culture. Nothing, it turns out, is more powerful than our effect on one another. Other people may drive us crazy, but it is for their sake that we find the stamina to go on living. Uncle Vanya is a bleak play, but its also a genuinely consoling one.

Rachel Cusks recent novel Second Place, another pandemic-era tale set in a bucolic backwater, acknowledges a debt to Lorenzo in Taos, Mable Dodge Luhans 1932 memoir of the time D.H. Lawrence came to stay with her in New Mexico. But the story of a narcissistic artist in this case a painter who arrives as a guest of honor and dishonorably wrecks the precarious equilibrium established by a writer mother, her daughter, their significant others and a wildcard guest evokes The Seagull, Chekhovs masterly comedy about artists in love.

Cusks refusal to let her storys brewing clashes reach any melodramatic conclusions also suggests the influence of Uncle Vanya. Perhaps Im reading Chekhov into the novel, but the ironic interplay of creative personalities and egos makes it impossible not to think of The Seagull, which is enjoying its own turn in the spotlight.

A new adaption by director Yasen Peyankov simply called Seagull is nearing the end of its run at Chicagos Steppenwolf Theatre. And New Yorks inventive downtown troupe Elevator Repair Service will be doing its own Seagull this summer in a version that, according to the companys website, reimagines Chekhovs classic drama by blurring the line between a play and a frank chat with the audience.

This is a strategy that was recently deployed in the Wilma Theaters flamboyant deconstruction of The Cherry Orchard adapted by Russian director Dmitry Krymov in conjunction with the Hothouse Company. Characters tromped through the audience with their luggage and a few spectators were called to the stage to help with a necktie and participate in a volleyball match. Yes, volleyball was played in a production that was unapologetically, though not gratuitously, anachronistic.

A scene from the Wilma Theaters adaptation of The Cherry Orchard, directed by Dmitry Krymov.

(Johanna Austin)

The Cherry Orchard dramatizes a societal shift between the land-owning gentry and the descendants of serfs, who are ready to capitalize on their initiative and seize what was hitherto withheld from them. Its no surprise then that in a period of momentous historical transition artists would be drawn to experiment with this seismic play.

In The Orchard, opening later this month in New York, Ukrainian director Igor Golyak presents a hybrid production that includes an immersive performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and a separate interactive experience online. The cast, which includes such stage luminaries as Jessica Hecht and Mark Nelson, features Mikhail Baryshnikov as both Anton Chekhov and Firs, the elderly servant whos left behind when the estate is ultimately auctioned off.

Chekhov, of course, is rarely absent from the repertoire, but I cant remember when hes been so adventurously present. Many of these offerings have been long in the works, but something is palpably in the air.

Michetti said that he has long wanted to do Uncle Vanya and jumped at the chance when Pasadena Playhouse presented him with the opportunity. Extrapolating from his own interest, he offered a compelling explanation for this sudden proliferation of Chekhov.

The pandemic has led many people to reassess their lives, to decide whether theyve made the right choices and to see if there might be another chapter for them, he says. So many things have shaken us up. The world as we knew it changed. For those in the theater, the entire industry was taken away. This really felt like an opportunity to answer the call to look at our lives, a very Chekhovian thing to do.

Michetti calls the Great Resignation the very stuff of Chekhov. Certainly, his characters are forever contemplating roads not taken or abandoned. What the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips calls the unlived life is the one that invariably seems to preoccupy them most.

But the plays dont hector or propound moral lessons. Instead, they depict how we exist in time, as critic Richard Gilman astutely observed. They show us the way we try to escape an unsatisfying present through speculative fictions about how our suffering will eventually be redeemed through requited love or satisfying work or, failing those, Gods mercy.

Chekhov saw this tendency as human, all-too-poignantly human. His art doesnt seek to correct but merely to point out that as were dreaming of better days our real lives are quietly unfolding.

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Commentary: How Anton Chekhov became the playwright of the moment - Los Angeles Times

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County has announced its lineup for the 11th season of THEATER UP CLOSE, created in collaboration with Zoetic Stage and City Theatre. This season's Theater Up Close series returns with five extraordinary productions, including two world premieres by Miami playwrights Michael McKeever and Vanessa Garcia, one Florida premiere and the regional premiere of Heidi Schreck's Pulitzer and Tony Award nominated hit Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me.

"The Arsht Center was very proud to present the 10th Anniversary Theater Up Close series to supportive South Florida theater enthusiasts," said Liz Wallace, vice president of programming for the Arsht Center. "We welcome the community back for a strong, wide ranging, engaging and thought provoking 2022-2023 season."

"We at Zoetic Stage are enormously excited to be partnering with the Arsht Center for our 11th season! Our programming for the 2022-2023 season has been carefully curated, crafted with stories about personalized American experiences igniting a wanderlust filled with moments surrounding human connectivity and moving forward," said Zoetic Stage Artistic Director Stuart Meltzer.

"City Theatre is very glad to be included in the Arsht Center's Theatre Up Close Series for the opportunity it offers our company to bring audiences interesting full-length plays that we are excited to produce, such as the regional premiere of Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means to Me. We expect it will resonate with South Florida audiences as powerfully as it did during its multi-award winning, sold-out run on Broadway," said City Theatre's Artistic Director Margaret M. Ledford

The lineup for the 2022-2023 THEATER UP CLOSE series includes the following:

Zoetic Stage and Adrienne Arsht Center present

By Lynn Nottage

Directed by Stuart Meltzer

October 13 - 30, 2022

Mlima is a magnificent African elephant trapped by the underground international ivory market. As he follows a trail littered by a history of greed, Mlima takes us on a journey through memory, fear, tradition and the penumbra between want and need. From Lynn Nottage, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Sweat and Ruined, Mlima's Tale is a captivating and haunting fable come to life.

City Theatre and Adrienne Arsht Center present

By Heidi Schreck

Directed by Margaret M. Ledford

December 1-18, 2022

Playwright Heidi Schreck's timely and galvanizing play became a sensation off-Broadway and then Broadway where it received two Tony Award nominations, the Pulitzer Prize nomination, and countless other accolades. Hilariously hopeful, and achingly human, Heidi becomes her teenage self, earning college tuition by winning constitutional debate competitions across the United States. Every amendment leads to surprising storytelling as adult Heidi traces the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives. Theatrical, personal, and boundary-breaking, Schreck's play breathes new life and understanding of the Constitution and imagines the impact of its evolution on the next generation of Americans.

Zoetic Stage and Adrienne Arsht Center present

By Michael McKeever

Directed by Stuart Meltzer

January 12 - 29, 2023

Over the course of some 60 years - starting in 1969 and ending in 2032 - the Cabot family tries to keep up with the world as it evolves around them. Epic in scope yet intimate by nature, American Rhapsody weaves the lives of its main characters through the ever-changing landscape of the American zeitgeist as it speeds through the last half of the 20th century into the turbulence of today and well beyond: civil unrest, the feminist movement, the greed of the '80s, the horrors of 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, same-sex marriage, the COVID-19 pandemic. As the family evolves into a new America, so does its cultural identity as members of other races and sexual orientations marry into and redefine what the family thought it was.

Zoetic Stage and Adrienne Arsht Center present

Music by Tom Kitt

Book & Lyrics by Brian Yorkey

Directed by Stuart Meltzer

March 16 - April 9, 2023

Next to Normal is a deeply moving rock musical that explores how one household copes with crisis and mental illness. Winner of three 2009 Tony Awards, including Best Musical Score, and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, Next to Normal was also chosen as one of the year's 10 best shows by critics at publications across the country, including The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

Dad's an architect. Mom rushes to pack lunches and pour cereal. Their daughter and son are bright, wisecracking teens. They appear to be a typical American family. And yet their lives are anything but normal, because the mother has been battling manic depression for 16 years. Next to Normal takes audiences into the minds and hearts of each character, presenting their family's story with love, sympathy and heart.

Zoetic Stage and Adrienne Arsht Center present

By Vanessa Garcia

Directed by Sarah Hughes

May 4 - 21, 2023

Catherine is searching for something authentic as she embarks on a "Lewis-and-Clark-esque" trip across America sponsored by Monteverde Moonshine with her new lover and colleague, Lewis. Along the way, they pick up a wayward nun named Rosalie who has just gone through deep loss, meet a queer homeschooled teenager named Blake and rummage through the layers of migration and gender inequity that make up America. As Catherine travels, she comes to more questions than answers about "the real America," her own identity and what authenticity even means anymore.

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The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts Announces 2022-2023 Season Featuring Two World Premieres & More - Broadway World

Correct me if I am wrong but there is a collective sense of apathy across social sections to protect, cherish and preserve the past. As Bangladesh stands at fifty, brushing aside detractors, looking into the future does not conjure up the image of a long dark tunnel anymore. Well, for someone who is just as old the country, there was a time when society lived with the mantra of addressing the challenges at hand, keeping future thoughts out of mind. Actually, with high unemployment among the educated, food shortages, recurring natural disasters, political conflagrations plus a pervasive feeling of malaise, looking ahead was too much of a luxury.

Live now, tackle the immediate problems and think about the future later, was the rule of the day. That rather dismal picture of Bangladesh, wracked by problems, is more like a faded chapter, although standing at fifty, its often the past that comes back in moments of nostalgia. Or, shall we say, delectable dive into the days gone by?

While trying to live for the moment, a mistake was made: We wiped away the past.

Dhaka, once a sleepy city, now operates as a bustling capital offering the best and certainly the worst of other capitals.

We all know the problems but apart from the glaring ones like traffic jams and congestion, the other, often neglected issue is the way Dhakas heritage is being systematically expunged.

From buildings to customs to music to food to architecture, the past is being obliterated in the face of a leviathan called predatory urban ideals. I know, modernity has its kick although its allure is ephemeral. Deny that and you will be perpetuating a delusion!

Dhakas ponds and old architecture:

Its hard to believe that once this city was interspersed with small water bodies or ponds. Almost every area had several houses with ponds at the back. To talk about Elephant Road, where I spent my teenage days in the early 80s, several homes had ponds. There isnt a single one now! The same applies for old buildings. Caught in the apartment culture, all individual buildings were demolished. Of course, the apartment was inevitable since land was limited and the number of people living in the city rose phenomenally. However, the city does not have a photo archive of buildings that were torn down. Hence, its almost impossible to reconstruct an image of Dhaka in the first decades after independence. In the Old part of the city, structures dating back to the 19th century are either left in a dilapidated condition or demolished to make space for new ones.

Old Dhaka is replete with history although a coordinated approach to safeguard the past is absent. Accepted, some of the privately owned buildings will be knocked down at the decision of the owners but a government run initiative can preserve images plus a wide variety of historical objects from furniture to utensils as objects of historical and cultural significance.

Recent urban history is scant:

Dhaka has experienced radical change since 1990. In the last thirty-two years, the cultural and social creed of Dhaka of the periods just after liberation was obliterated in a mad rush to accommodate new outlooks.

Just to give an example, portraying the city of the 70s and 80s in celluloid will be an uphill task because the social zeitgeist of the period, exhibited through a variety of items including, cars, clothes, books, posters has not be preserved.

In the 70s and 80s, the main past time for teenagers and the elderly alike was reading popular fiction like Masud Rana, Kuasha, Dasyu Bonhur, Dasyu Panja, Bionic Mehedi. In the afternoons, people listened to film trailers on radio followed by world music. Today, copies of these books are extremely rare. Once in a blue moon, some old Masud Rana copies emerge at the Nilkhet second hand market to be quickly taken by someone in what can be called a serendipitous find.

Copies of these books were not preserved. During last Eid, a collector of old Bichitra magazines sold his copies dating from the early 80s and late 70s for Tk500 a piece. The magazines, covering the heyday of footballing glory, the rise of the British Bangladeshi diaspora in the wake of the race related protests in 1978, floods in 1980, the obsession to head for the Middle East for highly paid employment to Bangladeshs first ever football world cup qualification adventure in 1985, opened the door to a forgotten era.

Unfortunately, no library in Dhaka can offer an archive of newspapers from the 80s, the turbulent years marked by the anti autocratic movement, leaving the young of today to be left at the hands of partisan narrators to form an idea about Bangladeshs political past.

For music lovers, a regular haunt was the Elephant Road Rainbowr Gali which housed recording centres, Soor Bichitra, Rhythm and Rainbow. Hardly any image or video recorded clips of these placed can be found.

Dhakas first air-conditioned fast food restaurant was Coffee House in Elephant Road, which is also lost in the abyss of time since images, video recordings of the place do not exist.

Recently, the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) through Alliance Francaise, British Council and Goethe Institute and BUET, launched a project Learning from Puran Dhaka aimed at protecting, preserving and cherishing the cultural heritage, architecture, river and creed of Old Dhaka.

Focusing on how the River Buriganga shaped livelihood and zeitgeist of Old Dhaka, this project will involve teachers, architects, researchers from Bangladesh, France and India.

To encourage the residents of Old Dhaka about the significance of the project, a series of visually stimulating cultural events will be organised in the future from colourful rallies to processions by French street performers using stilts known commonly as Les Grande Personnes.

At the launching event of the project, the EU Ambassador to Bangladesh, Charles Whiteley, acknowledged the historical, cultural and gastronomic heritage of Old Dhaka, saying: the vibrant and indomitable spirit of Old Dhaka is represented through its crafts, mouth-watering dishes and architecture dating back to the Mughal period. Cultural heritage is also a driver of sustainability in an economic, social and environmental perspective. On the socio-economic side, it is an important asset to enhance sustainable development by providing employment opportunities and supporting economic livelihoods.

A museum on Dhaka:

Since independence, this city, often termed the microcosm of towns and districts across the country, has undergone astonishing transformations. As the capital of the war ravaged country, Dhaka endured post liberation socio-economic malaise, political maelstrom, austerity and hardship moving slowly but inexorably towards prosperity and modernism. This journey and everything that symbolise the undaunted spirit, encapsulates the perseverance of this nation. On the 50th year, standing as old as the country and having experienced all of her highs and lows, I earnestly feel that there should be a concerted effort to safeguard historic buildings plus the recent urban history, covering the social metamorphosis since 1972.

To end with a quote from Richard Moe, the historic preservation advocate: there may have been a time when preservation was about saving an old building here and there, but those days are gone. Preservation is the business of saving communities and the values they embody.

Towheed Feroze is an avid admirer of the kaleidoscopic charm of Old Dhaka.

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Preserve the past, please! - Dhaka Tribune