Iowa Arts News is a monthly publication of the Iowa Arts Council. If you would like to subscribe, please send us a blank e-mail.
Iowa's Lao Natasinh Dancers To Perform in Washington, D.C.
The
Lao Natasinh Dance Troupe, based in Des Moines, will perform on the Kennedy
Center’s Millennium Stage, at the Library of Congress, and at the
Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C. July 25-27.
A partnership between the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress
and the Kennedy Center has made it possible to honor traditional artists
from around the United States. IAC Folklife Coordinator Riki Saltzman will
travel with the group to Washington, D.C. for this special presentation.
The group was also asked to be part of the “Art Night on the Mall,” an annual series held on Thursdays in July when the galleries remain open for late evening hours. The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery together form the national museum of Asian art at the Smithsonian.
Iowa’s Refugee Resettlement Program and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk Arts made it possible for the Lao Natasinh dancers and musicians to resettle in Des Moines in the early 1980s. The group toured the region and the U.S. for some years, though their main purpose is to teach and entertain at Lao Buddhist celebrations. Both musicians and dancers are involved in passing their skills to young dancers and musicians in the Lao community. Troupe members were featured performers at the 2001 Festival of Iowa Folklife, the Iowa Folklife & Prairie Voices Institute, the Culture Café (Des Moines Playhouse), at the 25th Anniversary of Freedom for the Peoples of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam that same year, at the 2001 Festival of Iowa Folklife in Waterloo, the 2003 Duluth International Folk Festival, the 2004 Midwest Folk Fest, and other venues in Iowa and the Midwest. The Lao Natasinh musicians and dancers are part of the IAC’s Cultural Express program, bringing diverse traditional arts to libraries and museums throughout Iowa.
The Natasinh style refers specifically to the performing arts at the National
School of Fine Arts. That genre includes court music for royal ceremonies
and the classical dance-drama based on the Ramayana, the Hindu epic that
depicts the life and struggles of the Buddha, as well as music and dance
performed for social and ritual occasions.
