Folkmoot Dance Festival USA

Folkmoot is traditional dance event that brings groups to western Carolina from several nations every year. There are only two such events in the US according to their emcee. This year the featured groups were Mexico, Slovakia, France, Japan, Poland by way of Chicago, Martinique,Thailand and an ethnic Canadian group performing Scottish dances. I think Folkmoot draws its groups from CIOFF as did the Kucukcekmece festival I attended in Istanbul last year.

My daughter and I passed out magnets to performers from France, Mexico, Slovakia, Japan and Martinique.

 These are the stilt dancers from southeast France. It originated with shepherds, hence the sheepskin vests. The stilts were worn by the herders so they could look out over the top of their herd. Or so we were told.

 Thialand. They stayed behind the curtain during intermission so I couldn't give them magnets. I sure do like those brass fingernails.

 Japan had a few different costumes, the kimonos being the most colorful. Wow. The magnet actually went to a female dancer who performed the drum dance.

 Ah, Mexico. You can always count on them to be colorful dances. The females wore wide skirts, each a different color, that swirled beautifully. The male dancers performed a dance that involved fancy moves with machetes that was really fun to watch. I gave a magnet to a girl in a flashy orange skirt who told me they are from Morales.

 These are the Polish dancers, part of an ethnic federation in Chicago. That almost seems like cheating but their dances are indeed authentic as are the costumes. I saw the real Poles at Kucukcekmece Festival in Istanbul last year.

These women are from Martinique. The photo is fuzzy but we weren't allowed to use a flash with the camera.