Create a Culture Final Response

Sarah Harms – BRSK

April 30, 2018

Long ago, a tribe of Sour Patch Kids started to be consumed by humans and were forced to

migrate from Earth to a giant gumball floating in the Milky Way Galaxy. Chief Sour Patch Kid had the

tribe grab as much candy as they could and they escaped into space in Willy Wonka’s Wonkavator.

On the new found planet, everything is made out of candy: buildings, roads, musical instruments,

and even the plants. Their money consists of gold-foil covered chocolate coins. The people speak

English due to their North American origin. They also made sure to save their gummy pets.

However, the Sour Patch Tribe brought more than just candy with them; they brought their

rituals as well. Every time the tribal chief has passed on, the people of Candyland hold a festival

where they ceremoniously inter the body of their chief into the volcano in order to please their God,

Willy Wonka. Through this sacrifice, they thank him for the salvation of their people and ushering

in an era of prosperity for the new chief’s reign. They play shakers and drums and perform a march

while chanting in the streets, celebrating life. The Sour Patch Tribe also honors their dead with a

celebration of their life. After each passing of the chief comes a crowning ceremony of a new chief.

I was responsible for researching the buildings and landscape of Candyland. On their new

found gumball planet, named Candyland by the tribe, lives a monstrous decadent volcano filled with

oozy chocolate lava. The volcano erupts unless regular sacrifices are given. This eruption will

destroy the entirety of the gumball planet, given the size ratio of the volcano to the planet. I was

also responsible for creating the scenery of the planet. Everything on this planet is made of candy:

plants, roads, houses, people, and instruments. Houses will be made from gingerbread, People will

be gummy candies, and the nature will also be varieties of candy. Candy people have a shelf life. As

the Sour Patch Kids age, they become stale and stiff and return to the land made of candy. They are

honored with a sweet sendoff song as they are incorporated into the land. Lastly, I envisioned the
gumball planet, home of the sour patch people. Since the gummy people were being eaten on earth,

they have migrated to Candyland. This was a forced migration.

Our performance will be interactive with the rest of the class. Our group will act as

members of the community on Candyland. We will treat the audience as astronauts

/ethnomusicologists that are visiting our planet to learn more about our culture and rituals. These

ethnomusicologists are very interested in the way of the tribe and are fortunate enough to have

arrived on the day of three very important rituals. Each astronaut will be given an instrument from

our planet so that they can participate in our performances. Our primary roles in our group will be

a Chief, a spiritual leader, and two tribe members. The purpose of these roles is so that the audience

can understand the roles within each ritual.

Our performance will begin with one of our narrators welcoming the astronauts and giving

them a background of our planet and how we have migrated there from earth. This will be when we

introduce our instruments and give out instruments as well. The audience will be instructed to

follow along one of our tribe members, so that they know what to do during each performance. We

will also introduce ourselves, our roles, and what we were responsible for in this presentation.

Following introductions will be our three performances of the rituals in our community. The three

rituals to be performed are the funeral, the crowning, and the sacrifice.

The funeral is a ritual performed in Candyland when one of our own passes. This is when a

Sour Patch kid grows old and becomes stale and returns to the landscape of the candy planet.

During the funeral, the Chief will die. Due to the high status of the Chief, many attend to pay their

respect to him and his funeral.

The crowning ceremony is held in order to crown the new Chief. In our performance, a new

Chief is needed because the old one had passed away. This ceremony will be a crowning of one of

our group members. The ritual will involve adorning the new Chief with a crown and scepter, and

remaining group members and the audience will bow to her in respect.
 The sacrifice ritual occurs in our land every so often in order to pay respect to the one who

saved us, Willy Wonka, from the humans who ate us and our belongings while on earth. In our

performance, we will sacrifice an undetermined piece of candy by throwing it into the Chocolate

Lava Mountain, which will be shown on the projector behind us. This song will start of slow and

sad, and increase in intensity as it goes on and as the sacrifice is thrown into the Chocolate Lava

Mountain.

At the end of all our performances, there will be time for question and answers from the

ethnomusicologists.

The final performance was a display of what we have learned in this course as well as an

opportunity to share our creative ideas for how music influences a culture. We were able to

implement aspect such as forced migration into our culture. This was displayed in our presentation

by mentioning how the candy people migrated to Candyland. We were also able to perform

examples of rituals via musical performances. These rituals contained a period of separation,

transition, and incorporation. Overall, BRSK was able to take ideas learned in class and implement

them into our performance while showcasing our creativity as well.