Day 183: Folk Life

Today we took advantage of where we live and headed into the city to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, a two-week-long festival held each year on the National Mall to celebrate the music, crafts, and food of several US and foreign cultures.  This year the festival highlighted Colombia, the Peace Corps (celebrating their 50th anniversary), and Rhythm & Blues.  

Michal sits in front of masks for the Feast of the Chontaduro, or "Dance of the Doll," which takes place at the height of the summer season in Colombia, during the harvest of the chontaduro palm.  This ritual dance reaffirms human ties to the world of water.  And the masks and costumes look pretty cool.

Walking past the Rhythm & Blues area, we discovered a concert about to start.  The Funk Brothers, session musicians who played the backing to most Motown Records records from 1959 to the early 1970s, played a great set of Motown hits, including "My Girl," "Heat Wave," "Dancing in the Streets," and "Get Ready," to name a few.  Random fact(?) of the day: The Funk Brothers have played more number one hits than The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys... combined.  

 After a nap through the first part of the show, Michal woke up and hung out with Grandma, dancing and bouncing to the music (when she wasn't saying hi to everyone around us).

Holy humidity curls, Batman!

Today marks the more-than-halfway mark in the progress of this blog.  Wow!