[Some videos I took at this year's Heritage Festival]

Eritrean dancing is always my favorite.

Croatian knife dancing.

Hawaiian dancing.



Chinese martial drumming.

[dance, baby, dance!]

Some pictures from this year's Heritage Festival. 

For new readers of my blog: The Heritage Festival is held each year at a big park here in Edmonton. This year there were 63 tents/stages. Each one for a country or an ethnic group. You can see their dancing/singing/other performances and purchase merchandise. You can also taste food from different countries.

This time my favorites were: Eritrean dancing (always my favorite, I could watch it for hours), Ugandan dancing, Korean drumming (so powerful!) and Karjalanpiirakat munavoilla (kun olen itse liian laiska niitä tekemään).

Gotta love the Heritage Festival!

Here are some video snippets for ya. Enjoy!

Then...
More dancing. Different venue. 
This So You Think You Can Dance performance brought tears in my eyes as I thought of all the misery and pain addictions cause. 
Cole is so wickedly great in this number!

{heritage festival}

love, love, love this festival. Canada is a big melting pot of cultures and the Heritage Festival is a great way to appreciate the various ethnic groups of the world. dancing, food, merchandise...

kuten aina, kävin skandinavian teltalla ostamassa karjalanpiirakoita.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEcXIVk8hfI

{my favorite festival, once again}

The annual Heritage Festival. My very favorite thing about Edmonton. I LOVE this festival! The big Hawrelak Park in the river valley gets filled with tents and stages. Each part of the world is represented with dancers, music, food and merchandise. Thousands of people gather to celebrate everyone's heritage. There are people in Canada from all over the world. Canada is a great cultural melting pot. We all live in peace with each other. Some minor squabbles here and there which is to be expected as the world has it's turmoils. But no one looks at you weird whether you have a tourban or a muslim scarf or a cowboy hat on your head. All goes.

I love it!

The festival started on Saturday, first of August. Jay was working that day so I had planned to go to the festival on Monday so he can come too. Could I stay away from the festival? Nope. I found myself deciding to go on both days.

Saturday was a really hot day (+33C, very humid) but there seemed to be a breeze so I thought it would be fine. Wrong! After just an hour or two, I had to give up and we came home.

We went back on Monday with Jay when the weather was much more tolerable. Perfect actually. Cloudy, not too hot. Here is a sampling of pictures from the festival. My favorite again were the Eritrean dancers (the last pictures). There's something I really love about their music and I love the rhytmic, simple dancing they do. I did miss seeing the older girls dance though. Hopefully next year again.

Our Church's missionaries get to do a great service project during this festival. They are the official Food Bank donation people, taking people's food donations. Another thing I love about Canada - Canadians have big hearts. There's lots of charity work here. Every year at Heritage Festival they collect tons and tons of food for those who are struggling. Just one little part of the charity work that is done here.

I only have one complaint about the festival - some countries' music was way too loud. It blared so loud you had to cup your ears or they'd hurt. Someone needs to check the noise level so people's ears won't get damaged. Next year I'll bring ear plugs I guess. :) Oh, and I didn't like that on the Chinese stage they had breakdancers. How is that celebrating chinese culture? Jay loved it though as he used to breakdance himself. So I guess I shouldn't complain - something for everyone. :)

Jay bought some food from the Fiji tent. It was supposed to be chicken curry but they gave him goat meat by accident. I had to snap a picture of this girl as I thought she was so beautiful!

I wasn't sure whether to frown or laugh about these. Superstitous emblems mixed with Christianity. Just seems like such a contradiction.

This little Eritrean girl was so cute dancing on the stage before the actual performance started.

{my favorite festival}

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Sienna wanted to take pictures of her stuffed animals. I ended up taking a few of her with them too. Tickle Me Elmo still scares her and it she only plays with it without the sound & actions. The drum is called denden drum. Something Sienna and I learned in our Kindermusik class. :)
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Yesterday we got to go to my favorite festival: The Heritage Festival. I LOVE IT!!!! It's in a really big park near downtown, by the river. There were 54 countries/areas of the world represented. There's dancing, merchandise and food from these countries. The festival goers are from various ethnic groups as well. Everyone is enjoying the festival together, peacefully. There's a great spirit about this festival. For a few days you get a glimpse of what it might be like if everyone got along and lived in peace with each other. Y
We always drive our car to the nearest bus depot and take the bus from there. It's part of the whole deal and I always enjoy my one and only yearly bus ride.
The first thing we saw was the Canadian aboriginal performances. This girl did a hoop dance. It is such a fun dance to watch. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that somehow Sienna would get interested in this part of her inheritance (she's 25% Squamish) and maybe even want to learn some of the aboriginal dances. I won't force anything on her, of course, but I'm hoping. :)
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I always enjoy this guy's performance. Last year's pictures of him were much better. I'll try to find the time to label last year's posting as "heritage festival" as well so it'll always be easy to find these pictures.
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My first stop is usually the Scandinavian tent so that I won't miss the Karjalan piirakka & sima. :) This year they had some viking fighting as well. This boy was so cute. Siella on myos aina isot peikko tytto & poika maskotitkin ja viikinkilaiva.
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This handsome dude (or should I say dudes) was in the Thailand tent. It's weird reddish/orangy hue is due to the tent it was in. I always love to visit the Thailand tent and admire their beautifully cut fruit (see last year's picture).
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Thai dancers. Lotus dance. Lotus flower represents purity.
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Pakistan performance.
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They invited the audience to come and dance too at the end and guess who went right away of course. Robin's always got his groove on. :) They even gave him a yellow scarf to dance with. (hi Karly ;) )
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One of my favorites is always the Cambodian dancers. They are so beautiful and graceful. Their dance is slow and elegant. The girl on the left was so pretty! Amazing eyes.
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The young Cambodian dancers doing their cute "dimple" move.

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Beautiful!

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Can't have a festival without dragon dance. The ending was awesome when the dragon stood on it's backfeet (= the front dancer was on the shoulders of the dancer behind him).

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This year I found something new (there's no way to see it all at once, you always find something new). I think this was my favorite: dancing from Eritrea. The music was so rhytmic and I could have listened to it for hours. It almost puts you in some sort of trance. I kept dreaming of a Eritrean night club where I could dance for hours. :) Jay thought it was boring after awhile and moved on with Sienna. :) I on the other hand wished I would have asked if they have music for sale. The people from this country seemed so beautiful. Really tall. There was a sweet old man playing a big drum and dancing. At the end everyone danced in a big group, jam packed. Loved it!!!

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Two of the gorgeous Eritrean dancers.

By the way, sometimes Finnish people think others are a bit clueless when they don't know where Finland is. Well, I didn't have a clue where Eritrea is and didn't know anything about this country. I had to look it up in my Atlas. Now I'm totally intrigued by this country. To find out what it's all about. Fun! There are so many countries in this world of ours. Can't keep track of them all. Unless you're a professional geographer. :)

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These were on top of the Japan tent.

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Sienna didn't get a nap yesterday so she passed out on the bus on the way home.

What a fun day. Did I mention how much I love this festival?!!!!!!!! :D

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ps. Click on the pictures!! :D