XXVII International Folklore Festival of Azores

                     

On the 7th to the 13th of August on the island of Terceira the annual XXVII International Folklore Festival took place. Tarbatu participated for the first time with a delegation of 27 dancers, three musicians - Sänni Noormets, Toomas Oks, Tõnis Kirsipu and artistic director Jaanus Randma.

We arrived at the island on the evening of the 6th of August. We were welcomed by Rita and Andre at the airport who were our guides during the festival. The festival was attended by two groups from the Azores, two groups from mainland Portugal, and 11 groups from other countries, the farthest of which was from Indonesia. All participants stayed in the high school of Angra do Herosimo where each group got their own classroom to use as living space. Concerts were given almost every evening in conjunction with others groups. Each group performed for about 20 minutes. Performances took place in two of the biggest local cities - Angra do Herosimos and Praia da Vitorias.

Every evening one or two groups organized a party where national dances were learned and danced together. On the Estonian evening, in addition to Estonian folk dance we also offered Estonian black bread and sweets from Kalev. An excursion of the island was organized for us and we spent a whole day seeing the sights. On another day, we spent few hours swimming with dolphins in the ocean. It was a new experience to swim in a place where the ocean was 350m deep. Since bullfighting is a national sport in Portugal, the organizers of the festival enabled us to experience it a couple of times as well.

The festival ended on the 13th of August and we started back three days later. Most of us had returned home on the 17th of August. Such festivals and islands are quite exotic so we all felt sorry for leaving and wanted to go back as soon as possible.

Performance on the final concert.