Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Random stuff from Folklife

Best picture:




Best name for a business (could double as an indie band): Mutual Fish. My friend A tells me it's a great fish market.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Pictures and video from NW Folklife

Got back yesterday from NW Folklife. Fabulous as always. Am too tired to write much about it, but here are pics:


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...