Phoenix, Arizona - Taipei Youth Folk Sports Performance

The Taipei Youth Folk Sports Performance group performed at the Kroc Center in Phoenix as part of the Sister Cities celebration.  The group of 27 performers and 13 delegates from Taipei, Taiwan came to Phoenix to celebrate 37 years of friendship between Phoenix and Taipei.

"Rope Skipping" became more and more complicated.

The group performed folk dances.

This is called "Taiwanese Diabolo Spinning".  The purple disk spun on a rope and the performers would swing them up and down and toss them high in the air.

 

This boy had three of them going at the same time. He is waiting for the one that he tossed in the air to come down.

Folk Dances.

 They showed some fancy footwork with a "Shuttlecock", the thing that you hit over the net in badminton.

 Add a hoop to make it more difficult.

 Swirl long pieces of material while kicking the shuttlecock.

 And stack on your friend!

 Folk dancers.

 A drum routine.

 Drumming on the plates.

 Glow in the dark diabolo plus long colorful tubes.

 Warrior folk dance.

 Long sheets of fabric.  They fluffed and lifted and moved.

 And displayed this pattern!

 One more photo of the shuttlecock routine. Do not try this at home unsupervised!

The Phoenix Sister Cities organization partners with our sister cities for performances and events throughout the year.  There is a youth ambassador program. I sat next to one high school student who was a US Ambassador and she loved the program.
https://www.phoenixsistercities.org  Our sister cities are:
Calgary, Canada
Catania, Italy
Chengdu, China
Ennis, Ireland
Grenoble, France
Hermosillo, Mexico
Himeji, Japan
Prague, Czech Republic
Ramat-Gan, Israel
Taipai, Taiwan

Phoenix, Arizona - Matsuri - Bonsai and The Candy Man

A Japanese festival would not be complete without those amazing Bonsai trees.  These never fail to catch my eye.  I saw a lot of trimmed trees when I was in Japan (not all Bonsai) and my poor desert trees have been suffering every since!

 I had to stop and see "The Candy Man" perform because I found out about these artists when I was researching for the Asia trip but did not get a chance to see one perform.

 These are traditional ame zaiku (candy sculptures) made with mizuame (boiled starch sugar) mixed with shokubeni (food coloring).  He takes a ball of the hot candy in to his hands.

 The ball is put on to a stick so that he can work with it and it can be held later.  He snips little pieces and pulls and tugs to make the ears, nose and other parts of the animal.

 At the end of his performance, a candy animal.

I did research on these artists, called shokunin (artisans).  They study for years to perfect the styling and design of the sculptures and make it look effortless when they perform.

This made me think of the hard tack candy that my aunt used to make at Christmas time.  I remember that it was very hot when it came off of the stove at the perfect temperature.  It was then spread out and she would cut it in to pieces with scissors.  We were never allowed close or to help because it was so hot.  SO, years later, I decided to make this at home for my family.  Yikes, it WAS hot!  And you had to handle it fairly hot or it began to freeze as a large chunk.  I cannot imagine making anything other than my twisted squares of candy.  I did not make shokunin status and can appreciate the skill behind this man