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Dick reports... |
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Street FestivalsIt appears that street festivals have taken over the city of Toronto. Nearly every community jumped on the bandwagon. The Festival of South Asia and was celebrated on Gerard Street East – in Toronto – between Greenwood and Coxwell Ave. This area has a predominantly ‘East Indian’ flavour and offers a rare opportunity for a concentrated and deeper than usual immersion into part of Toronto’s cultural mosaic. The festival district was amazingly clean. Most of the stores even washed down the sidewalks – something I remember only from Germany! Many restaurants and stores had set up operations outdoors. Prices were held very reasonable. For example, beautiful shoes were $5.99 or two for $10.00 in one store. Typical South Asian fashions were displayed on the sidewalks in front of the many fashion stores and attended by sales staffs that were dressed matching the displays. It was a symphony of colours. Wonderful décor was offered for sale, like small temples, and elephants and gods in all shapes and sizes. There was a rich variety of typical South Asian food available from out-door kiosks and local restaurants with colourful names like Ali Baba, filling the air with exotic aromas. This truly was an ideal opportunity to try culinary varieties from South Asia. If you missed it you can still go there throughout the year and enjoy the multitude flavours and colours of what we perhaps can call Little India.
Some of the dancer’s costumes – of the Ho-Hai-Yan festival
by the Zu-Yun Cultural Music and Dance Troupe - were
Wonderful pottery, sculptures, woodcarvings and paper-art could be viewed – and admired - in the Brigantine Room, all day. It was one of the most crowded areas of the whole show since most of it was so wonderfully elaborate and complex that people had to spend more time viewing the exhibits.
Bloor Village goes Ukrainian
Parade Scenes
Something that was very obvious and hard to ignore was the fact that a great many youngsters – in a multitude of diverse groups – were included in this multicultural demonstration. They were very proud to wear their traditional colourful Ukrainian dress and most of them still spoke Ukrainian and were proud of their heritage!
The imposing ceremony, was interspersed with dances by the Vatra Dance Ensemble and followed by a vocal performance of the ‘Chornomor Kozaky’, a group of real ‘Cossacks’ imported from Odessa on the Black Sea, for this occasion.
The thirsty visitor had his choice of very tasty beers, such as Slavutich or Lvivske - or appetizing vodkas and Krimsekt from the Ukraine - in the bar-tents along the way. The many vendors allowed the visitors to soak up some of the rich culture and heritage if the Ukrainian community. There were the traditional dolls-in-dolls, painted eggs, ceramic creations and wonderful pottery, paintings and handcrafts – especially at the Ukie Store booth. This year a literary pavilion was added that also featured the new ‘Kobzar Children’s Anthology’ – a century of untold Ukrainian stories, edited by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch. The Kobzars were the blind minstrels of the Ukraine who memorized the epic poems and stories of hundreds of generations. Travelling around the country, they stopped in towns and villages along the way, where they told their tales and were welcomed by all. ‘Kobzar’s Children’ is more than a collection; it is a moving social document that honours the tradition of the Kobzars and revives memories once deliberately forgotten.
There was a much relevant Ukrainian experience available giving the feeling that one is visiting the Ukraine itself – without leaving Toronto. I think that these street festivals are a grand and much more effective replacement of the Caravan experience, which has run its course. As always Dick Altermann
Comments to: dick@echoworld.com |
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