We’ve finally made it through the the hot St. Louis summer-- the air so thick at times you could cut a slice of it and grill it up for dinner. With the last weekend of August upon us, there is no better way to end cap your summer festivities than to check out the 13th Annual Festival of Nations.
Going on this weekend, August 25-26, the festival will be celebrating St. Louis’s diverse heritage with live performances, food and local vendors. The event has been put together collaboratively by the International Institute collaborating with 125 different community organizations. The feature performance will be COBU: an all female troupe fusing tap dance with traditional Japanese Taiko drumming. COBU is led by Yako Miyamoto, a featured performer in Broadway’s STOMP. The performance is noted for their “juxtaposition of traditional modernity”, which mirrors much of the lives we lead today throughout the world in our transnational cultures.
“Today’s Festival of Nations has its origins in the International May Festival, first held in St. Louis in 1920. Organized by the International Institute of St. Louis, the May Festival was one of the earliest multicultural celebrations in our nation. Letitia Fyffe, the Institute’s first executive director, proudly describes the crafts and performances featured in the 1920 festival. “The exhibit of foreign handicraft was collected from among our own women. All were intensely interested in contributing their share, delighted at our appreciation of their cherished belongings.” By that evening, “[there was] a foreign atmosphere to the scene,” she writes.” Pennants representing most of the Nationalities in St. Louis were stretched across the street with an American flag in the center.” After a program of music and dance, the ceremony concluded with “a tableau representing the Institute welcoming foreign-born women at the hands of Uncle Sam.”
That first year, an estimated 2,000 people attended. Last year over 140,000 visitors came to celebrate and basque in the presence of our global world right here in the heart of Tower Grove Park. Bring your friends and family this year and celebrate all the heritages that make our city so unique.
Written by Ciara Brewer on behalf of Monica Brewer
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