Strange Fruit

I walked between 9 and 10 miles today. I took Poppy on three walks (almost a mile each) and then Mark and I walked to campus (which is close to 4 miles round trip) to see this aerial acrobatic/dance performance by the Australian group, 'Strange Fruit,' who were in town as part of the Lotus World Music Festival. Later, we walked downtown (another 4 mile round trip) to attend more concerts at the Lotus fest where, over a four and a half hour time span, we saw performances by 7 different groups from around the world. We saw Luisa Malta from Brazil, Kaumakalwa Kanaka'ole from Hawaii, Joaquin Diaz from the Domican Republic, The Creole Choir of Cuba, The Sidi Toure trio from Mali, Te Vaka performing Polynesian song and dance, and Bulgarika from Bulgaria. The Creole Choir of Cuba was the highlight of the evening. They were amazing, vocally astounding and beautiful to watch perform.

This blip, as I mentioned, was taken of a performance 'Strange Fruit' gave for free on the IU campus. It involved three women who climbed up these poles that must have been 15 to 20 feet tall. Once at the top, they stood on swiveling perches and then pulled up a hoop skirt that encircled the pole. Once they had their hoop skirts fastened on, they began to sway on the flexible poles, sometimes bending it halfway to the ground. It gave the effect of them flying and swooping about. It was all choreographed to taped music and hypnotically fun to watch. It was definitely worth the long walk to see.

I took so many pictures, it's a shame that I'm only able to post this one. Many of the pictures I took later in the day, were in low light situations and didn't come out as well, so this is probably the best photo I managed to take.