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26 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЖОВТЕНЬ 2016 Kingston Multicultural Festival by Marianna Szczawinsky Crans, Branch 95 For the past four years, the first Sunday in June has been a fun-filled day for celebrating the many different ethnic cul- tures of the people who reside in the Mid Hudson Valley of New York. Sponsored by the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History in King- ston, N.Y., the festival recog- nizes many local national her- itages and shares them with the community, especially with children. The event, hav- ing recently been renamed the Kingston Multicultural Festi- val to more accurately describe its purpose, has truly become a celebration of community. Featuring hands-on ethnic ac- tivities, national foods, and music and dance, it is an ideal family outing. The first three years, the festival was held at beauti- ful waterfront park in our Historic Downtown District. This year, how- ever, rainy weather dictated a change of venue, and we had to hold the event at the Andy Murphy Neighborhood Center, which serves as Kingston’s Municipal Auditorium. Despite the downpour, the event went off without a hitch and was very well attended. Instead of using the auditorium stage for the musical performances, organizers decided to put featured performances in the center of the au- ditorium and have all the food vendors as well as the cultural and community booths around the pe- rimeter. Thus, no matter where they were in audi- torium, all those attending could see and hear all the performances. The first group to perform was an all- women Native American Drumming ensemble. The shows continued all day with Mexican folk- loric dances, Italian folk songs and Tarantellas, Klezmer music, a Latin guitarist, the Tsvitka Ukrainian Dancers, Irish Step Dancers, Indian Ku- chipudi dance, African Caribbean Drumming, and even a local children’s Energy Dance group per- forming modern steps to Rap Music. The activity and music were nonstop and enticing, motivating people to clap and dance along! Individual booths showcased Japanese, Ukrainian, Italian, Greek, Mexican, Native American, and Jewish cultures and invited participation. Chil- dren were taught to make origami animals, write their name in Ukrainian (many picked up the Pysanky & Cossack color- ing pages offered at our booth); they learned about Native American drums, and sampled Greek and Italian desserts. Some chil- dren learned how to make and even break a piñata (a huge piñata was made es- pecially for this purpose and was broken by the chil- dren during the festival). A wide variety of foods was available for sampling, in- cluding Venezuelan are- pas, Mexican tamales and tortillas, fried fish sandwiches, Kosher hot dogs and hamburgers, Greek baklava and honey cake, Italian pastries and cookies, fried dough, and flavored ices and drinks. This was our third year participating in the festival, and Branch 95 has been a welcome addi- tion, with visitors responding enthusiastically to our dancers as well as the displays featuring our community, culture, and art forms. This year we added a display on Cossacks, which included a take-home coloring page on which children could match Ukrainian terms to the various objects pic- tured; we even had a mural where visitors could take their pictures posing as fierce warriors or a bandura players. After many years of participating in and planning such events, we have discovered that there is a great curiosity in our culture, our history, our art forms, and especially our identity as a na- tion. We field many questions and the people we interact with respond with understanding, sup- port, recognition, and most of all, respect. Not bad for a day of sharing and fun. Cossak Mural
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