Multicultural Festival

After going to the temple, we went to Multicultural Festival in downtown Chandler. It was pretty interesting.
We saw a Ti Kwon Do demonstration with lots of breaking boards. They yelled “Keyaaaaah!” in unison about every 10 seconds or so, and there was somebody’s enormous dog nearby that decided the yelling was a bark, so every time the group Keyaahed, the dog gave a thunderous bark, which sounded nearly the same! “Keyaah!” ARF! ……“Keyaaaah!” ARF! …..“Keyaaaah!” ARF! There was some giggling in the audience about this.
There was a girl in the Ti Kwon Do group that was quite impressive. She had long black hair, olive complexion, an extremely determined expression, and very lithe. She and this other guy did a sword demonstration to some very vigorous music from “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and it was fascinating to watch her wave that blade around in a blur. The sun sparkled off it. I could just imagine the little boys in the audience would probably go home and start practicing the same with their mama’s biggest kitchen knives. The same girl also did a staff-fighting demonstration, and a sparring exhibition. I didn’t like to watch the sparring. It’s all very well to watch people punch the air to atoms and kick their shadows into next week, and break pine boards into kindling, but I’d rather not watch anyone get flipped on their face and stomped into the ground by someone else, thank you.
The group was so disciplined. They kept up the discipline even when off-stage after their show. Every once in a while we’d hear a “Keyaaaah!” in response to their dragon master’s commands and communication, all while the MC on stage was introducing the next group. At that point the Keyah-ing started to seem ridiculous, probably because it was no longer appropriate to be yelling; it sort of distracted from the main focus on the stage. Imagine them going to Disney world together to see the sights. (“Have a magical day!” “Keyaaaah!” The parade goes by. “Keyaaaah!” They go on the Magic Mountain roller coaster. “KeyaaAAAaaAAAah!” They meet Mickey Mouse. “Keyaaaah!” Mickey runs in terror.) But I digress.
Next were some chinese dances, one with colored paper parasols, another with fans with material on them that fluttered in the breeze. It was very cute and feminine and gentle and watching it made me happy. The fans were interesting to watch because they used them all kinds of different ways in their dance. They pretended they were a hat shade, a beard, something to wave with, a flirtation device, and so on. I thought the costumes were a little peculiar, because they showed what appeared to be a Spanish influence. The colors were white, red, and black, their hair was tied back with a red flower behind their right ear, they had dangly things hanging from their shirt, and they wore what looked like gaucho pants.
Next were some Mexican dances done by little girls between the ages of 6 and 15. They seemed to emphasize waving large skirts around and stomping and hopping. There was one boy that did a solo dance, called “The Old Man”. In this dance he walked out hunched over at the waist, supported by a cane, which he waggled in time to the music to depict tottery agedness. Then he seemed to gain strength and do a lot of hopping about, and at the end, he keeled over on his back, as if the old man had died of a heart attack from the excessive exertion of dancing. A very cool touch of humor.
The announcer for those dances kept making jokes about how good-looking he (the announcer) was. He was a middle-aged, slightly pudgy guy, with no particularly distinctive looks, quite average. The first few times those jokes didn’t seem funny, but towards the end it was hilarious. I’m still not sure why.
Then there was Hopi Native American dance, one representing the introduction of the horse to the Indians, and it featured two guys in native regalia, one dancing and the other beating the drum and chanting. The costume of the guy dancing really did make him look like a horse. He had a long, thick, black tail of horse hair popping perkily out of the top of his waistband in back, which swooshed delightfully about, and he had a headdress of black feathers that started at the top of his head and went down his neck to represent a horse mane. He bounced around on alternating feet, shaking a rattle and occasionally waving a stick with feathers fixed to the end, and sometimes gesturing with an ear of corn. He represented the prancing, the galloping, the jumping of the horse, according to the wailing and caterwalling and guttural singing of his buddy beating the drum, “Ale-ale-ale-aa-aa-aa-ale-ale-aaaaaaa-ii-ii-ii-ii-ii-aale”. The guy singing seemed most partial to A and I vowel sounds and L consonant sounds.
After that, the guy who was drumming told the audience that the drum was supposed to symbolize the heart beat of mother earth and of all living things, and to this purpose the beats were even in rhythm and emphasis. He said that Hollywood depicted Indian drum beats differently, with a sort of BUM-bum-bum-bum –BUM-bum-bum-bum” and that if our hearts ever started beating like that we should go see a cardiologist. Much laughter in the land. Excellent to educate the audience and remove misconceptions.
Then they did the hoop dance, which was quite amazing. The guy doing it started by picking up one hoop and put his body through it in the most elastic manner in time to the drumming. Then he picked up the second hoop and made pictures with it and then put his body through and around both of them together. Then he picked up a third hoop and made a globe-like thing with the three hoops. He kept adding hoops and making all kinds of figures – butterfly, bird flying, planet earth with the moon, putting the body through all the hoops and making all kinds of designs, Olympic rings, playing jump-rope, etc. It was acrobatics to music and it was supposed to symbolize how interdependent everything on the earth is. I’d say it was an excellent object lesson for that. No wonder they like these dances and consider them great and important.
The Assyrian dance was a combination between female eastern European styles (lots of stepping and hopping in a line) and Israeli dances. (They probably would hate the comparison to Israeli dance, so don’t tell them I said that.) The last dance they invited the audience to participate and join in the line and a bunch did, including me, but I got my ears blasted out by the speakers when I went in front of them and that was very bad. On the whole, dancing with them was very fun and reminded me of folk dance at BYU.