While living in Madison for the month of September, I looked for a church. I found one at Sherman Avenue United Methodist Church. Sunday mornings, they have an early service in English and a later service in Hmong. The second week I attended there was a unified service for Multicultural Sunday. We sang and prayed in English, Spanish, and Hmong. Congregants were encouraged to dress up like their backgrounds. Afterward there was a potluck lunch with Mandarin, Vietnamese, German, Dominican, English, Norwegian, and Jamaican dishes. Needless to say, no one went hungry. After we had served ourselves, we were treated to a performance by the Ballet Folklorico Mexico Azteca dance troupe from Milwaukee. Easily a dozen groupings with as many costume changes danced a variety of "traditional" dances: a supposedly 1000-year-old Aztec ritual, Mexican polka and flamenco, and the Mexican hat dance. The dancers ranged from about 5 years old to 60? They reminded me of when we were kids, representing Sokol Baltimore and/or Czechoslovakia doing tumbling and pyramids at street fairs, malls, and cultural festivals.Welcome to my Album of Photographs and Memories of Travel, practicing Medicine, culinary Experiments, and other Exploits.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
What do a Sokol and a Bailador have in common?
While living in Madison for the month of September, I looked for a church. I found one at Sherman Avenue United Methodist Church. Sunday mornings, they have an early service in English and a later service in Hmong. The second week I attended there was a unified service for Multicultural Sunday. We sang and prayed in English, Spanish, and Hmong. Congregants were encouraged to dress up like their backgrounds. Afterward there was a potluck lunch with Mandarin, Vietnamese, German, Dominican, English, Norwegian, and Jamaican dishes. Needless to say, no one went hungry. After we had served ourselves, we were treated to a performance by the Ballet Folklorico Mexico Azteca dance troupe from Milwaukee. Easily a dozen groupings with as many costume changes danced a variety of "traditional" dances: a supposedly 1000-year-old Aztec ritual, Mexican polka and flamenco, and the Mexican hat dance. The dancers ranged from about 5 years old to 60? They reminded me of when we were kids, representing Sokol Baltimore and/or Czechoslovakia doing tumbling and pyramids at street fairs, malls, and cultural festivals.
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