FOUNDATION
NEWS
HIMALAYAN UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES PROGRAM
(December 15, 2008)
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation believes that an effective way to increase interest and appreciation of Himalayan art and culture is to support and promote education and scholarship in Himalayan-related fields. In recent years, the Foundation has been expanding its activity in education and scholarship. In addition to supporting individual scholars and working to build a community of scholars in the New York area, in 2007 the Foundation began extending grants to help foster an expansion of undergraduate education in Himalayan Studies.
The Foundation has awarded six universities with grants of $30,000 each, renewable for up to five years, with the aim of establishing a lasting presence of Himalayan Studies in the undergraduate curriculum at these universities. Grantees may use their funds to develop and teach courses, as well as to finance extra-curricular events such as lectures, exhibits, performances, workshops, and other similar programs that foster interest, discourse, and understanding. The intention is to create a constituency for issues important to the Himalaya, including environment, human rights, civil society, in addition to arts and culture.
In the first phase of the program, the Foundation awarded grants to three universities: Columbia, Yale, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. The diversity in usage of the funds reflects the broad scope of the project. In addition to courses on art and culture, grantees used the funds to sponsor lectures by visiting scholars, public seminars, art exhibits and related activities, website development, and for the publication of textbooks.
During the second phase of the program, the Foundation extended grants to Dartmouth, Emory, and Eugene Lang College of the New School for Liberal Arts. Dartmouth will use the grant to develop and run a semester abroad program in the Tibetan region of Yunnan Province, China. Both Emory and Lang will create courses taught in conjunction with museum exhibits; Emory will collaborate with the Michael C. Carlos Museum, and Lang with the Rubin Museum of Art.
CIRCOPEDIA
(November 24, 2008)
The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of Circopedia, an online circus encyclopedia that documents, promotes, and preserves the wonderous world of the circus. The Foundation provided both the inspiration and the funding for the site; it was developed by the magic-workers at Big Apple Circus, Dominique Jando chief among them. Jando, an internationally renowned circus historian, and former Associate Artistic Director of the Big Apple Circus, served as Curator and editor-in-chief for the project, with creative responsibility for all content. Circopedia was designed and engineered by Charles Forcey through his firm, Historicus, Inc.
The idea behind Circopedia was to use the internet to help the public better understand and appreciate the circus as a global artistic and cultural phenomenon, embracing both the populist nature of the circus and the democratic technology of an interactive web archive. Circopedia has enabled the Big Apple Circus to build upon decades of leadership in the preservation of the classical circus by creating an ongoing historical archive of the art form and its development, highlighting its most important acts and major eras – arts that would otherwise be lost.
Donald Rubin, the chairman of both the Rubin Foundation and the Rubin Museum of Art, is a lifelong fan of the circus, and he and his wife Shelley are long-time supporters of the Big Apple Circus. Donald is thrilled to make available on Circopedia videos of the heart-stopping acrobats flying so far above the circus floor; hilarious routines from some of the world's most beloved clowns, and daring feats of courage by animal trainers. But the site is more than just videos; there are essays on the history and practice of the circus arts and on the world's circuses; biographies of and interviews with directors and performers; and photographs, together preserving the wonderful world of the circus for future generations.
The Foundation has one other circus among its grantees: Zip Zap Circus, in South Africa. Zip Zap is a school of circus arts that helps children of South Africa acquire and develop self-confidence, self-esteem, discipline, life skills, and strong personal values. Additionally, they seek to assist these children to rise above their personal circumstances and difficulties - which may include the loss of parents and caregivers as a result of HIV/AIDS - and their socio/economic legacy of discrimination, poverty and disadvantaged circumstances. Zip Zap is now in the midst of a capital campaign.
THE LINEAGES PROJECT: TEACHING TRADITIONS OF TIBETAN BUDDHISM
(March 17, 2008)
In March 2008, the Foundation launched the first version of The Lineages Project, a digital encyclopedia of historical religious figures of Tibet together with portraits drawn from the Rubin Museum of Art and other important collections.
The project began two years ago the urging of Matthieu Ricard, the well-known author and photographer and board chair/projects coordinator of the Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship and Karuna Asia, two highly effective organizations dedicated to Tibetan welfare and cultural preservation. Vivian Kurz, DKF's vice president and a tireless champion of Shechen's projects, led the project over the last two years. Under Vivian's direction, numerous excellent scholars have participated in the project, including Mr. Ricard, Gyurme Dorje, Dan Martin, Cyrus Stearns, and others.
The Buddhist teachings are passed down from master to disciple in an unbroken transmission that began with the historical Buddha Sakyamuni or, in the case of the Tantric lineages, from the dharmakaya buddha Vajrapani. These lineages are meant to insure that the teachings remain uncorrupted, preserved across consecutive generations of the faithful.
Both legendary and historical figures hold pride of place in the lineages, which serve to link current masters to the buddhas and great masters of the past. Tibetan religious institutions are organized largely around these lineages, and the founder of a given order is often the imputed originator of that order's teachings. But the lineages are not restricted to sectarian divisions; indeed, the greatest masters of Tibetan Buddhism are almost invariably referred to with the adjective "rimay," meaning "ecumenical" – which is to say that they studied and practiced under masters of multiple institutions. Thus, when tracing a single transmission lineage, one is likely to travel across the divisions of Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and even Gelug, as well as other minor institutional orders.
Since the Communist invasion of Tibet and the subsequent Chinese occupation, there has been a great dispersion and loss of Tibetan religious traditions. Lineages that once were rooted in particular Tibetan locations or monasteries have been forced to find new venues for transmission outside of Tibet. One consequence of the diaspora has been a new attention to the great Tibetan masters of the past. But information about them is available for the most part only in specialized and untranslated texts. The Lineages Project is intended to provide a single database of these biographies for the benefit of all who would find it useful.
The Lineages Project has begun with leading figures of the Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug, and Jonang traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. We hope that collaborative efforts between the Foundation and others can gradually enlarge the web site so that most of the major teaching traditions of the Tibetan region are fully set forth.
The Lineages site will be linked to the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center and Himalayan Art Resources, adding biographical content to their already extensive bibliographic and iconographic information.
The Tibetan Lineages site is currently undergoing a significant redesign. Presently the site is a prototype, and will be merged with a much-expanded resource within the next year. Other traditions of Tibetan Buddhism will be added, with substantial new content. The site will also allow for multiple new avenues of access, including historical period, geographical location, and teaching.
