2ND FOLK MUSIC AND DANCE FESTIVAL OF ETHIOPIA - ARBA MINCH, 16 - 18 DECEMBER '06 | FLY

“We got involved with this festival because we run a charity in the UK called Global Music Exchange. This was set up after recording music of the Baka hunter-gathering people in the Cameroonian rain forest. Because of this experience of recording indigenous music and returning royalties for sustainable community projects, the funders of Festival Under the Stars, the Christensen Fund, asked us to help with this project in Ethiopia.

“The highlights so far? Well, imagine animal skins and waving spears followed by nearly naked groups from desert lands, leaping into the air as high as they can, and brightly dressed mountain peoples with flutes, drums and trumpets, all trying to out dance and perform the next group. The huge crowd went wild and the atmosphere was truly exuberant

“Visitors come because this southern region is so rich in diverse cultures and for many of us it is a real eye opener to see that these cultures still exist. To see this many groups together is remarkable: if you were to travel to their homelands it would take months, so it is an important, fascinating and rare cultural crossroads with wonderful and diverse song and dance traditions. People come from very varied environments, ethnic and language groups.

“It isn’t primarily a time to show tourists their cultures but for self expression for themselves and to discover the cultures of their fellow southerners.

“As well as the usual activities, this year there will be nine groups we have never been seen before at the festival as well as sections for solo artists playing quieter instruments and singing history songs. Arba Minch is the centre of Gamo Gofu region and choirs from 5 local schools will sing songs of the area as part of the program.”

Well, if that doesn’t whet your appetite and you need yet more persuading to visit the birthplace of humanity, follow some of these links below.

Details:
2nd Folk Music and Dance Festival of Ethiopia in Arba Minch
Venue: The Football Pitch
Date: 16th - 18th December, between 3.00pm - 7.00pm daily.

Getting there:
Arba Minch is 500 kms south of the capital, Addis Ababa, and is the main town en route to the Omo valley. Ethiopia Airlines fly twice weekly from Addis Ababa. The festival is a free event funded by The Christensen Fund of Californian association with Global Music Exchange

Links:
1 Heart
Arba Minch Folk Music Festival
Ethiopian Airlines

I am the founder of MelodyTrip, www.melodytrip.com , a website that is focused on music festivals and fans who are passionate about music. I came across your blog and found it to be very entertaining and well-written and thought you would be interested in becoming a MelodyTrip community member.

MelodyTrip has all the latest news on festival, lineups, bands etc, but there are some specific reasons why you, as a blogger interested in music could benefit from joining MelodyTrip.

1) You can post cross-post your blogs to MelodyTrip to generate awareness, exposure, feedback and links to your blog, even if is not always music related.
2) If you are interested in attending music festivals and blogging about them, MelodyTrip can get you press passes or free tickets to virtually any festival if you agree to preview and review the festival on MelodyTrip.

If this sounds good, sign up as a member and shoot me an email letting me know you did, and if there are any particular events you would like to cover in 2007 or ways MelodyTrip can help you out. Now is a great time to contact me since it is the down season, there is a lull in the action, but we would love to have you as part of MelodyTrip when things heat up and traffic explodes in March.

Matt Casey
matt@melodytrip.com

namskar we are artist of folk music and dance from rajasthan india. ew have performed many contries.my institute name is thar lok kala sansthan rajasthan institute of folklore india. we want to performance our festival. 10 person our my group langa manganiar folk music and dance. please contanct my institute.

respected sir
iam deen mohammad manganiar folk musician india a am music organisor that lok kala sansthan (desert folk music centre india) this institute working on folklore my group hase performed in many international festival,s we want to perfomance in your festival 2010. 10 artist our my group.folk music and folk dance and kalbelia dance and bhawai dance.and traditinal instument,s kamaycha khadtal morchang ans dholak.so please contact with my institute.
thanks
deen mohammad
programme organisor
THAR LOK KALA SANSTHAN
(desert folk music centre)
0091 9413810449
email:tharlok_kalasansthan
@yahoo.com

sir—we are a international sambalpuri folk dance teem. we are very much intrested to promot our dance internationally,so please kind help us to promot our dance in yr festivels.please contact us—-alok ku panda,sambalpurkalaparishad@gmail.com+919861230333