Culture Shock Moves Into Programming With Street Beat Show by Jordan Levin, Article Review Example

Miami Herald July 7^th, 2013

Summary of Article

This article advertises the Culture Shock Miami program. The intervention allows access of low cost access tickets to students for viewing art events, which they could have afforded to see at the regular cost. According to the news reporter this project is expanding throughout Miami and neighboring states. On Saturday the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center will host drumming and dancing from the Street Beat cultural group (Levin, 2013).

Meanwhile the Los Angeles Street Beat group operates a non-traditional band trope using tire rims, brooms, trash cans, bottles, various household objects, and junk in designing percussion instruments/music. The typical genre consists of combining various arts into one cultural form applying rhythm-centric dance styles such as hip-hop and tap integrating ideas derived from jazz and African, Latin and Cuban culture as well as urban music (Levin, 2013).

This media article continued to explain that Culture Shock is a Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs intervention with the aim building an arts-going predisposition among young people, which will sustain them through into adult life. Teens and young adults pay $5 to view shows at the Adrienne Arsht Center staged by the New World Symphony, Miami City Ballet and at about 90 other venues and arts organizations combined (Levin, 2013).

Personal opinion

This article depicts music cultural art form adapted by a generation of youths. The cultural form as well as its exposure is relative to their time, age group and social status. Importantly, the efforts of Street Beat in bringing cultural awareness to youths who may not be capable of accessing these services due to the high cost of living and prices for viewing such artists is commendable. As it relates to the Miami location, which is rich in Haitian, Caribbean, Cuban and American cultural forms exposure to this cultural diversity is most relevant to this society.

The ability to combine rhythm-centric dance styles such as hip-hop and tap integrating ideas of jazz and African, Latin and Cuban culture and urban music is a valuable cultural expression. Further innovations of tire rims, brooms, trash cans, bottles, various household objects, and junk in designing percussion instruments/music is a unique feature in demonstrating the usefulness of artifacts in cultural expression. Even though Culture shock has not yet named this orchestra just as how the Trinidadian steel pan has emerged into a unique musical instrument perhaps, this is the beginning of a similar development.

Connection of the current event to assigned readings

The current reading pertain to ‘Cultural Psychology’ by Stephen Heine Chapters 1 & 2

Chapter 1 embraces two themes. First psychological processes are shaped by human experiences and the second theme discusses differences between universal and cultural variable psychologies

Psychological process emerge from biological forces underlying them such as the human brain and in differentiating differences between universal and cultural variable psychologies one must search for evidence to distinguish a universal variable from cultural one ( Heine, 2012, p 1).

Hence, the human experience shaping the psychological process in this article relates to youth. The obvious psychological process is exposure to cultural expression as an art from depicted in music and dance participation. The universal variable is music, but the distinct expression (tap, pip hop) defines it a cultural variable (Heine, 2012, p 1). The chapter further explains that culture relates to particular type of information related to one’s species such as Cuban, Caribbean, Haitian or simply people. Also while it defines a group of people the boundaries are not distinct as experienced in the music cultural indicated in this article (Levin, 2013).

References

Heine, S. (2012). Cultural Psychology. New York. W. W. Norton & Company

Levin, J. (7^th July, 2013). Culture Shock moves into programming with Street Beat show. Miami Herald