By Ann Rynearson
This year’s stage line-ups are lead by several major dance performances. Eileen Wolfington is organizing a “Fiesta Mexicana” to celebrate, as she says, “the complex heritage of different regions of our neighbor to the south.”
Diadie Bathily, the famous dancer-presenter from Mali will be leading a special, choreographed performance of Afriky Lolo and bringing in a special guest artist direct from the Ivory Coast. Grupo Atlantico brings music, songs and dances of the Colombian coast to the stage, including a Carnaval celebration featuring masked dancers. In addition, Soorya Performance Company is bringing a troupe of professional dancers and musicians to present the best of classical Indian traditions. Along with so many other strong troupes in the local area, this should be an “all star” show.
The World Music Stage brings a performance of one of St. Louis’ most popular groups—world percussion group Joia. Look for them early Sunday. Many other popular local “world beat” troupes also appear, including French jazz-based Poor People of Paris, the haunting notes of Native American bone flutes of Autumn’s Child, Iranian- Gypsy-Latin tunes from Farshid and Friends and Latin rhythms of Clave Sol and Samba Bom.
In the crafts area, the festival-long exhibit will be the process of making fantastic masks from Puebla, Mexico, said to be the embodiment of bad dream-spirits brought to life only to drive themaway. On a rotating basis, we’ll have demos and workshops of Kiowa bead and quill work, Mandingo tie dying, Chinese painting, German woodcarving and pinch pottery and Mexican sugar skulls used for the Day of the Dead.
This entry was posted
on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under A day in the life, Celebrating Diversity.
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