on July 3 with a tailgate party. More than 150 members of the 

 University of Wisconsin marching band came to open the tail- 

 gate party by marching onto the mock football field on the 

 Mall and giving a performance of band music, and then closed 

 the event with a rendition of the "fifth quarter." Governor 

 Tommy Thompson joined other dignitaries, including Packer 

 Hall of Famer Willie Wood, former Packer Tom Brown, 

 director of the Universiry of Wisconsin marching band Mike 

 Leckrone, and Jim Irwin, voice of the Packers, who spoke 

 about football community traditions. The Wisconsin program 

 was made possible by and was produced in cooperation with 

 the Wisconsin Arts Board and the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial 

 Commission on the occasion of Wisconsin's 150th anniversary 

 of statehood. Wisconsin corporate contributors included AT&T, 

 SC Johnson Wax, and The Credit Unions of Wisconsin. 



"Pahiyas: A Philippine Harvest" marked the centennial of 

 the Philippine declaration of independence from Spain at the 

 Festival. This program was the result of several years of re- 

 search and development by the Smithsonian Centet and the 

 Cultural Center of the Philippines. Pahiyas. a Tagalog word 

 meaning "gems" or something of value, given to strengthen a 

 relationship, became a theme of a program that was or- 

 ganized, in part, to connect Americans and particularly 

 Filipino Americans with the cultures of the Philippines. Some 

 of the very best communiry-based artists who demonstrate 

 mastery of their tradition came to represent their country, and 

 they were presented in contexts familiar to all Filipinos. A bas- 

 ketball court, always a focal point of any barrio or barangay in 

 the Philippines, hosted kulintang gong performers from Min- 

 danao Island, Kalinga and Talaandig community groups from 

 upland regions of the country, and martial artists. An 

 elaborately decorated chapel was the venue fot presentations 

 by a bamboo marching band, devotional singers and dancers, 

 and a rondalla ensemble. The chapel was lit up with elaborate 

 colored lights for Philippine-American Day and the Fourth of 

 July celebrations. Craft traditions were presented in three 

 cluster areas that highlighted the technical process used by 

 the artist: weaving, pounding, and carving. The small san-sari 

 (general goods) store on the site, "4 Marias," was the venue for 

 some very thought-provoking narrative sessions on topics as 

 varied as "concepts of home," "Philippine centennial," 

 "Filipino time," and the "faces of gender." On Philippine- 

 American Day, June 27, seven Filipino-American groups from 

 across the country performed on the basketball court and then 

 joined the Philippine delegation for a traditional procession 

 around the Mall. Afterward, all the performing groups joined 

 in presenting an evening concert. The Philippines program 

 was produced in collaboration with the Cultural Center of the 

 Philippines and the Philippines Centennial Commission and 

 was supported by the American International Group, Inc., 

 The Starr Foundation, Bell Atlantic, the Philippine Centen- 

 nial Foundation/USA, and the Asian Cultural Council. 



Issues of identity and resistance were at the heart of the pro- 

 gram "The Baltic Nations: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania." During 

 the Soviet occupation, native languages and traditional customs 



were suppressed; the large song festivals, held every four to 

 five years, provided one of the few opportunities for the 

 expression of cultural identity. Thus music and song took on a 

 special meaning, and music was heard everywhere in the 

 Baltic Nations program. In one very moving session at the 

 Lithuanian Village Table, participants from the Marcinkonys 

 Village Folk Ensemble sang music of exile, from the time of 

 the mass deportations to Siberia. In the Foodways kitchen, 

 members of the Salmanis Family sang Latvian songs on the 

 advantages of herring as they prepared fish soup. Craft 

 demonstrations from the three countries featured work in 

 wood, amber, metal, ceramics, and cloth, fence making, egg 

 decorating, and straw craft. Opening day of the Festival, June 

 24, was also St. John's Day, or Midsummer Eve. Estonians, 

 Latvians, Lithuanians, and Americans all joined together to 

 celebrate the holiday with song, dance, and a large bonfire. 

 The Baltic Nations program was made possible by and 

 produced in cooperation with the Estonian Government and 

 Estonian Ministry of Culture, the Larvian Government and 

 Latvian Ministry of Culture, and the Lithuanian Government 

 and Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. 



The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Festival program was a preview 

 of a program on the relationship of culture to environment in 

 the Rio Basin planned for the 2000 Festival. A very diverse 

 community was formed for this festival program, which in- 

 cluded 17 participants coming from Basin regions in Texas, 

 New Mexico, Colorado, and the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, 

 Coahuila, and Chihuahua; and colleagues from El Colegio de 

 la Frontera Norte (Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez), Mexico's Con- 

 se|0 para la Cultura y las Artes, Colorado College, Narciso 

 Martinez Cultural Arts Centet, New Mexico State University, 

 Universiry of New Mexico, and University of Texas — Pan 

 American. Three thematic areas were defined in the program: 

 environment and contemporary communities, traditional 

 knowledge and management of environment, and local cul- 

 ture and sustainable development. In these areas participants 

 demonstrated crafts, ground corn, cooked on a two-hot-plate- 

 burner makeshift stove, tuned accordions, talked about plant- 

 ing and ritual cycles, and generally engaged visitors in 

 conversations on their traditions and on environmental issues 

 in their communities. A single stage served both for conjunto 

 music performances and dancing, and for narrative sessions 

 where issues of land and water, migration and immigration, 

 gender and occupation, education, resource management, and 

 more were addressed. Each Festival week closed with a proces- 

 sion to San Isidro, patron saint of agriculture. The Basin 

 project was cosponsored by El Consejo Nacional para la Cul- 

 tura y las Artes with support from the U.S. -Mexico Fund for 

 Culture (The Rockefeller Foundation, Fundacion Cultural 

 Bancomer, the Fondo National para la Cultura y las Artes), 

 SBC Foundation, Texas Folklife Resources, and the Texas 

 Council for the Humanities. 



The fourth annual Friends of the Festival Ralph Rinzler 

 Memorial Concert on July 2 was a tribute to Rinzler 's musical 

 heritage and featured Klezmer musicians who were among the 



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