Cran Fest event celebrates diversity
CRANBERRY TWP — Good music and better food might be the best atmosphere for learning and keeping an open mind.
That's what Chanel Wissner hopes people found at the second annual Cran Fest on Saturday at the municipal center.
“I don't want there to be a cloud of ignorance,” she said. “You learn, and you understand. You bridge the gap. What better way to do that than over food and music?”
Wissner, who is of the Lumbee-Tuscarora tribe, lives in Pittsburgh and performs with the Many Nations Singers, a Native American performance group that shared its culture and celebrated diversity with the event.
Cran Fest was sponsored by the Cranberry Area Diversity Network along with the Cranberry Public Library, the Cranberry Township Sister Cities Association and the Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau.
It's what Gary Winterhalter, co-founder of the diversity network, hopes will engage people in more discussions about diversity.
“This is to get people in the door so they can start to realize diversity is what makes Cranberry Township what it is,” Winterhalter said. “We want others around us to really get into diversity. That's how you're going to change the world.”
At the event, there were multiple demonstrations, vendors, and a folk and food cultural festival, complete with performances that represent different cultures.
Wissner, who is from Pittsburgh, performed a traditional jingle dress dance, a healing and prayer dance, and she enjoys being able to share her culture's history in fun and creative ways.
Every dress is meant to have no less than 365 jingles on it, and Wissner's has 420, a representation of her husband and her late mother's police badge numbers. Her husband serves with the City of Pittsburgh police, as did her mother.
Wissner's mother taught her how do the beadwork as a young girl, and it's her way of honoring her mother's memory and keeping her alive, she said.“You don't want to undo any (beadwork),” Wissner said. “Every bead is a blessing, and every stitch is a prayer.”For Wissner, dancing and keeping the traditional beadwork alive is her way of spreading knowledge about her culture.“Celebrate what you are,” she said.The Cran Fest celebration included dance performances of Irish dancing, German dancing and Ukraine's Poltava dance. Another dancer performed Arabic-style belly dancing while standing on glass goblets.Belly dancer Kristin Ward calls herself an “American mutt,” but she first realized the beauty of belly dancing more than 10 years ago.Ward said she's never had any medical accidents while practicing and does not worry too much about it, she said.For Komal Dietz of Seven Fields, celebrating culture is not dancing on glassware, but learning the ins and outs of traditional Japanese ceremonies.Dietz is half-Japanese, and she has spent years studying traditional Japanese culture in her spare time to share with others.After college, she spent a few years in Japan with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. While there, she spent two years learning how to tie different knots in the obi belt, which is tied around kimonos.During her time in Japan, she also studied traditional tea ceremonies, which she performed at Cran Fest on Saturday. To perform the ceremony traditionally, the green tea must be made using matcha powder in a traditional cup with a bamboo whisk, a concept she studied for five years, she said.At Cran Fest, Dietz's three daughters had a table where they taught people how to fold origami. Maya, 13, Ria, 11, and Sonya, 9, have all been practicing origami since they were little.“A long time ago, children in Japan didn't have a lot of toys so they made things out of paper,” Dietz said. Today, origami is a hobby and leisurely activity still, she said.Dietz works as a preschool teacher at the Cranberry Nursery School, but she also does trips to schools in the Pittsburgh area to teach students about Japanese culture.For her, the goals of Cran Fest are similar to her visits to schools: to educate people and share cultural diversity.“I'd like them to just learn about the Japanese culture,” she said. “See the differences, see the similarities and just appreciate it for what it is.”
