The Bobs, whom I first discovered as a college student, lo, these many (many) years ago in Santa Cruz. Musically interesting and lyrically silly a capella vocal group.
A closeup of Amy "Bob" Engelhardt's skirt. Thought it was cool.
Two points if you can identify this instrument.
Seattle Chinese Orchestra, the only traditional Chinese orchestra in the Pacific Northwest.
Classical Indian dance. This was one of my favorite things at Folklife this year; it just transported me. The video doesn't really convey the experience, of course. If you've seen this kind of dance before, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, get yourself to a classical (not Bollywood) Indian dance performance ASAP. It's amazing.
We saw Tango Argentino (caught their show last year) and once again I got to lust after the fabulous shoes the women wear. I have flat feet and use custom-made orthotics, so I'll never be able to wear this kind of shoe, which is possibly why I think they're so sexy. If you're interested, do a google search for tango shoes and you'll see what I mean, but you can't appreciate their full effect unless you see the women actually dancing in them. Yowza. Here's a video (this isn't the group I saw, but you'll get the idea):
There are about a gazillion tango videos on YouTube, if you wanna see more. It's pretty hypnotic stuff.
We got to see friends we (regretfully) only see once a year, and managed not to melt (it rained most of the weekend). I satisfied my yearly urge to contradance, and my sweetie got to play drums with Yeshivas Goldensteyn, otherwise known as the University of Washington Klezmer Ensemble. Here's a link to sweetie's blog entry if you wanna know more, complete with pics.
Gotta go collapse. Am SOOO tired, but also basking in the post-Folklife euphoric glow...
2 comments:
Sounds like loads of fun. Who were the Indian dancers? Were they from Seattle? You could take classes here in town if you were interested....
Hi Magpie-
Sorry for the delayed response; I was in eastern Oregon.
The dancers in the showcase (there were three separate performances) were Nartaki, Manasarovar Kathak & Parvaiz Rajan and Nitya Venkateswaran. I believe they're all from the Seattle area.
As for learning this kind of dance, I'm afraid my flat feet would make that very painful. I can't do much barefoot. As a sports medicine doctor once told me years ago, my feet need to be in "a lace-up environment." I'm content to watch and be enthralled.
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