The
fifth Experience Asia Festival was celebrated the whole day on an beautiful Autumn day (Saturday, October 3, 2009). Usually we hold this Festival during the last weekend in September, but due to pre-scheduled FSU home football game, we moved it to the first weekend in October. I was just recovering from a bout of nasty fever. But managed to attend most of the events. The main attraction for this year was performance of Matsuriza, the Japanese Taiko
drummers from Orlando, FL. This year the crowd was about the same or
slightly more than last year (~12,000) but due to the expansion of vendor and display booths to both the parks, at times, it felt like the crowd was bit less.
Our
group performed the Harish Chandra play just before the official
opening of the program at 12 Noon. VTS was the King Harish Chandra, he was also suffering from a bad cold but managed to do his role well. We were missing one performer but managed with a substitute till mid play. Mrs Jane Marks, the first lady of
Tallahassee opened the program and Mr John Marks III spoke to the crowd
via a speaker phone from Seattle, WA where we was attending a
conference. Dr Diao welcomed everyone. Mr Ferdie, the ACT Secretary and
Ms Aurora, one of the event coordinators were there everywhere helping
people and doing their own cultural performances.
I participated in the Festival as a stand-in for the International Costume Parade. My requests for people from various regions of India didn't get enough volunteers, so I stepped in with my blue kurta and pajamas.
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2009_11-ATM-09EAF.pdf - on Nov 10, 2009 6:40 AM by Thayumanasamy Somasundaram (version 1)
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