Reflections on a summer of travel...and it's not over yet!

August 5, 2007
by Livia

Reflections on a summer of travel

July in Europe. This is the first time since 9/11 that we have been back to Europe as a full Company. We Caravaned with 30 people that included 16 Company members, 6 Youth Company Dancers, assorted family and 2 companions! We were thrilled to be invited back to the Rudolstadt Tanz and FolkFest, remembering our fabulous time there in 1998 where we premiered "Pastures of Plenty: Tribute to Woody Guthrie". This time, the Festival requested a program of our mixed Americana work, since the country they were honoring this summer was the USA. We brought with us our signature clogging pieces, a great rendition of Grine Kuzine (yiddish theatre song from our mini-musical, "Streets of Gold"), "Vigilante Man" and "Hanged Man's Reel" later additions to our Woody show, and 2 swing/Lindy Hop dances featuring some of our newest Company members. Visit the photo gallery by Andreas Heidrich http://www.vanavercaravan.org/rudolstadt.htm, a fabulous German photographer, who captured the essence of our mainstage performance on the Market Stage.

Company members like Bill, Elijah, Rachel Prince and myself who had been to Rudolstadt in '98, knew what to expect. The whole medieval town becomes the festival grounds....from the theatres and churches and town halls, to the castle courtyard to the marketplace, to the park (with the best Kinderfest I have ever seen...run by dedicated clowns who work with children and also with the disabled population in Germany all year round. Here children and families are totally engaged in creating interesting and unique crafts, and enjoying entertainment activities). We all danced till the wee hours of the morning with the other 70,000 attendees. In fact the Tanzelt tent was so packed one night that I could only teach dances that went up and down! The first Bal du Folk (open participatory dancing in this huge dance tent) took place beginning at 1:15 AM and lasted till 3 AM! When I saw that on our itinerary, I originally thought they meant 1:15 PM but it's military time in Europe, folks...silly me! Our wonderful band: David Bernz (guitar) Harry Aceto (bass) Sara Milonovich (fiddle), Bill on Banjo and in addition, Lori Morris (saxaphone) and Rich DeCrosta (trumpet) delighted the crowd. Our dancers mixed and mingled and got everyone going on Virginia Reels, Cajun train dancing, Swing, Clogging and even a polka. We arrived late on Thursday night were taken to a converted convent about 2.5 kilometers from the Festival. We woke up in the morning overlooking the beautiful countryside and listening to the voices of a Georgian women's choir that was sharing the lodging with us. After rehearsing in a large, airy room upstairs we prepared to go down to the Festival. We brought with us a plaque from the Ulster County Legislature naming The Vanaver Caravan as Cultural Ambassadors of Good Will from the People of New York State and presented it to the Lord Mayor of Rudolstadt at the opening ceremonies. Susan Zimet from the Legislature had presented the plaque to us at our concert in June at the Colony Cafe. This is exactly the kind of work that I love to be doing with the Caravan; forging meaningful relations worldwide. It's so important to our work to be doing this globally as well as locally. We were then featured in the opening concert on the Market Stage, which was a prelude to the Festival. One of the best parts of performing at international festivals is meeting and interacting with other performers from all over the world. The highlight of the Festival for many of us was Saturday night in the Food Tent, which is always packed with performers share delicious homemade German food in between working. Bill walked past the Georgian women who were seated and eating, and started to dance Lesghinka ( a well known Georgian dance). They immediately responded by singing and clapping one of their songs. He picked up their drum and began drumming the traditional Georgian rhythm that accompanies the song. The girls from Belarus who were sitting across from them, started dancing and singing one of their pieces. Marina & Gaby began dancing Flamenco against their rhythms and Evita and Michael began doing balboa (a fast form of swing). The rhythms and clapping picked up and Nathan began tapping and doing foot percussion against all of this.. You can see this clip...although a bit dark...on You Tube. On Sunday during our performance on the Kinderfest stage, Bambi, chief clown and director, interrupted us towards the end of our show. "We have a special surprise for The Vanaver Caravan", he said. We turned around and all of the performers from Belarus flooded onto the stage to give us a gift of their dance and song. This was a result of the connection in the Food Tent. Dance and music are universal languages. These are just some moments illustrating that truth. We're hoping to return to Europe next summer for some different festivals.

Nine of us went on to Sweden for a week, where we were guests at Herrang, the summer Lindy Hop haven of the world. We were invited to perform and teach 3 workshops of very different dance forms on "Cultural Day". Talli Jackson and I taught a Contact Improvisation class in the morning, Elijah taught a South African Gumboot dance workshop in the afternoon and we all taught Clogging in the evening. What fun and again...what cultural exchange!! People at Herrang dance even later into the night than in Germany, as it never really gets dark in Sweden. I don't think we collectively have stayed up dancing for so many hours as a Company. None of us slept very much on this tour. One of the best aspects of being at Herrang, was to be in the presence of Frankie Manning (93), the guru of Swing, whose teaching of this style of dance is like no one elses....so much skill mixed with love and compassion for so much of what he created in this form. Herrang was packed with some of the most wonderful teachers of this form from all over the world.

We actually took two Companions on the tour and would love to find a way to expand on this for the future and take more people along. May Peace Prevail on Earth. Livia