October 2010 eLetter
Contact
Newsletter editor Sally Jenkins and eLetter editor Anne Schaffer with your news
at editor@tifd.org. By emailing editor@tifd.org, you get both. Sally does the 4 quarterly newsletters and
Anne the 8 eLetters each year. The
deadline for sending in information for the November newsletter is October 18th
and for the December eLetter November 24th.
The Camp brochures
were sent out in early September. That
means it is time to start planning your costumes for the evening parties! If you did not receive a brochure, go to the
TIFD website at www.tifd.org for information and the
registration form.
TIFD would like to
thank Jan Bloom for compiling the brochure, Leslie Gompf for compiling the
registration form, and Susie Thennes, Mike Hefner, Shelley Allison, and Susan
Combs for helping with the distribution.
We are fortunate to have members who step forward and help with the many
tasks needed to make Camp happen. (Jo Soto)
And speaking of
helpers, volunteers are still needed the weekend before
Camp to help set up the wonderful wooden floor that makes dancing so easy on
our feet. If interested in being one of
these floor slaves, contact John Alexander at 512-453-4463 or neanderthal@mail.utexas.edu.
OTHER NEWS
Kabile Traditional Wedding Band, the popular
Bulgarian musical ensemble, is coming to East Texas in November on its current
3-1/2 month tour of the
Many folk dancers travel overseas during the summer on folk
dance related tours and cruises organized by folk dance teachers. Aside from providing the opportunity to
experience the dances of other countries on their home turf, these trips also
expose the traveler to all aspects of a culture: language, customs, clothing, food,
architecture, art, crafts, history, transportation, etc.
This past summer Barbara Strey of
Some folks had
already been in
Upon joining the
other dancers, we had a city tour of
Nanjing, Huanshan,
Wuhan, the Three Gorges Dam project, Wushan, Fendu's "ghost city,"
and Chongqing all included trips to temples--one via a ski lift--many steps,
and even sampan rides up the smaller gorges.
Chongqing had the largest population:
an unimaginable 37 million!
After debarking, we
were flown to Xian, where we danced in the park and saw the terra cotta
warriors. (See www.terracottawarriorexhibit.com
for the story and pictures.) A farmer
digging a well found the site in 1974.
Subsequently, his property was bought, he was educated, and he was given
a home. These days he signs the souvenir
books sold at the museum. I bought one.
We flew on to Beijing
for a few days. The Great Wall was the
big attraction there. On our last day,
traditional dragon boat races were being held with crews from all over the
world. The consummate shoppers among us
were conducted down to a street full of small shops. Since I am NOT a shopper, the guide took me
to a lovely modern library to a section with books in English. I satisfied my
"inner geek" with a copy of a book on Windows 7.
From there, some of
us flew on to Hong Kong. There I was
able to visit dancers from the Budlet dance company whom I had known for years,
having met them in Romania. A friend who
attended UT years ago flew in from Taiwan with her little daughter. Sandy Starkman was at the hotel then also, so
she joined our visit. The weather was
not ideal. Most of the days were in the
90s with high humidity. There was some
rain, but little sun. It was largely
overcast, so we did not get to see mountaintops, all of the temples, etc.
For all the Big
Sights we saw, I most enjoyed some of the small ones, such as the Garden of the
Master of Nets in Suzhou (http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/home/twangshy.htm)
and the wonderful museum in Wuhan (http://www.travelchinaguide.com/picture/hubei/wuhan/stone_museum). It was fun to see the giant pandas too. Some of the best times were dancing in the
parks and on the streets with the passersby.
The Chinese food was pretty rich for most of us. We learned that Mandarin has four tones,
while Cantonese--spoken in Hong Kong--has NINE!
Fortunately, the English and the cuisine were much better in Hong Kong. Besides the food, there was the problem of NO
readily available potable water. The
hotels and ship gave us each a bottle of water every day. We thus had to spend some of our vacation
funds on bottled water. In all, though,
it was a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experience...for all 45 of us.
October 15-17, San
Antonio, TX, International Accordion Festival.
www.internationalaccordionfestival.org
October 29-31, Austin,
TX, Fire Ant Frolic. Nils Fredland
calling, music by Elixir. www.fireantfrolic.com/
October 29-31,
October 29-November 7,
featuring Alpine and Bavarian food, music, dance, etc. www.wurstfest.com
November
5-7,
November
12-14,
November
19-21,
November
25-28,
February
18-21,
If you have not changed in some way during the last 10
years, you are clearly not paying attention.
Travel will change you. Go
somewhere!