A Different Beat At The Spokane Art School, Peter Urio Opens New Worlds To Students Through Dance, Art, Food And Cultural Awareness

Colorful beads of a thick Masai necklace contrast sharply with the whitewashed and sparsely furnished third floor of the Spokane Art School.

Seated in one corner, a gaggle of youngsters gazes at the image projected on a wall as a teacher explains the meaning of each color in the jewelry.

“The black beads are like a shield of strength - all the people together,” he says, carefully articulating each syllable to help the children understand his East African accent. “Red means political strength, and blue means peace and tranquility.

“Green,” he says, “is like when it rains, the grass is green. Lots of food and lots of milk from the cows. Green is blessings.”

Peter Urio, whose Tanzanian given names - Sungurio and Kyikyogoo - mean rabbit and little rooster - is garbed in a knee-length white shirt called a kanzu in Swahili, his head covered with a flat-topped cap called a kitunga.

The former national director of Tanzanian art festivals, Urio, who move to Spokane nine years ago, teaches African culture to two dozen East Central neighborhood children.

Until recently, as far as these kids were concerned, Africa might as well have been on another planet. And the same could have been said about the Spokane Art School.

Urio has taught African culture at the school for the past three years. But of the more the 100 adults who enrolled, only two were African-American.

Board chairwoman Sue Bradley, who takes seriously the school’s mission to bring art to the whole community, saw Urio’s course as a way to coax minority students through the front door. Once familiar with the school, they could explore ceramics, photography, sculpture and all the other classes offered through SAS.

Bradley told Urio if he could recruit 10 students, she’d find scholarship money somewhere. In almost no time, he signed up 15 youngsters at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and another dozen at the East Central Community Center.

Civic leaders Roberta Greene, Carol Wendle and Bradley’s husband, Scott, covered the students’ tuition for Urio’s course. Now Bradley is seeking more sponsors, so the children can take other SAS classes.

Meanwhile, Urio chips away at barriers to international understanding with a variety of tools, from family slides to African music, dance, games, artifacts, and even foods.

On a recent afternoon, Urio explained to the student that he wears a kitunga on his head as a sign of respect - “to show I don’t know everything” - while in American culture, he points out, wearing a hat indoors is sometimes interpreted as disrespectful.

Students are examining items Urio has brought for show-and-tell - a zebra-skin purse and sandals, more Masai jewelry and several colorful skirtlike wraps - when someone asks about Africa’s weather.

“Tanzania is humid, like Houston,” Urio says. “But the middle of the continent is very dry and windy. And Mount Kilimanjaro - the highest point in Africa, 19,000 feet high - is very cold.”

Soon, it’s snack time. This day Urio has prepared tasty samosa (small meat and vegetable turnovers) and kachumbari (a spicy coleslaw made with tomatoes, cabbage, peppers and vinegar).

The youngsters gleefully celebrate the fact that they can eat with their fingers.”They remind me of tacos and salad,” says Julian, one of the older students, as Urio explains how things like food and music travel from one culture to another, and sometimes back again.

Alicia Biggs, an Eastern Washington University education student and coordinator of the King Center’s FAME program Fulfillment, Achievement, Maturity, Enrichment - says Urio’s African culture class teaches lessons not being taught at home or in public schools.

As the youngsters clean up the snack area and head for the dance floor, Biggs observes, “Most of these kids don’t have a sense of where they came from. They have an identity problem.

“By learning a little bit about African culture, it not only helps them be more aware,” she says. “It gives them a sense of pride.”<

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: For more information about Peter Urio’s African culture course or other Spokane Art School offerings, contact SAS at 328-0900 or visit the school at 920 N. Howard.