The Peruvian Festival of the Snow Star is held in May or June in the Sinkara Valley in the Cusco region of Peru. As described in the blog, Festival Mood, this festival is a religious and cultural gathering commemorating an event that occurred in 1780.
If every picture tells a story, each of these photo posters is a complete storybook. Images from a single Greek Orthodox Folk Dance & Choral Festival (FDF) event were collected and posted on their own boards, which are stored by the Preovolos family. Many familiar faces in these individual photos, including people who are still involved with FDF. Besides being a Who’s Who of FDF for that year, the posters show what it was like off-stage at FDF. You can’t help but feel some of the excitement of those who were there.
Folk dance is not easily defined. In an article on the website of The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, European folk dances are described as typically being associated with “peasant” or “folk” communities, created in groups or alone and informally passed from generation to generation.
Merriam-Webster ranks the most popular words of the year based on which of the words in their dictionary experienced the biggest spike in lookups. In 2014 “culture” was the #1 word and “nostalgia,” from the Greek word meaning “to return home,” came in second. With “legacy” taking fourth place, it looks like the Web of Culture was onto something.
The 44th Annual St. Spyridon Greek Festival in North Park starts this Friday, June 5 and runs through Sunday. Some of us wait all year just for the traditional Greek pastries, freshly baked for the Festival. The aroma of seasoned meat being roasted or grilled is irresistible, too. And the spanakopita is the real deal, not the frozen kind from TJ’s.