Strathcylde Uni's answer to Stonehenge, Pete & Jess in front of Architecture Bldg. View of Glasgow west end from hill by Architecture building
Hutnuk dancers, Hutnuk dancers, a group of drummers we also saw
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Must have been tired. We slept until 8:00 AM---never do that. Might have slept longer, but Chase girl decided that it was time for her herd to be awake and moving, so she got us up. She, however, went back to bed. We didn’t move to quickly or do too much until 11:30.
Today is the last day of the Merchant City Festival. Merchant City is a neighborhood within Glasgow which they have worked hard at revitalizing it in the last twenty years. The renewal continues. Each year they have a festival, appropriately named Merchant City Fesitval. They have had musical performance groups, dance groups, drama groups, and visual artisits performing all over the neighborhood since Friday evening. It is a great concept….instead of pushing mobs of people into one large venue for one or two performances; they have much smaller venues with a large number of performance groups. The groups performed two or three times in different venues and at different times. Obviously the groups are not all top name groups, They performed on the street, in small galleries, in pubs, and in churches. In addition to the performers they also had street stalls where vendors were selling anything from food to handbags to jewelry to farmers market types of items. I can think of several cities in the states that should try the concept.
We walked to John Street to see the first group on our agenda, Orkestra Del Sol. Of course, on the way there it began to rain. It was raining hard enough that we had to have the rain jackets and umbrellas. Like Glasgow…it stopped fairly quickly and the music went on. This is a young group which had two drummers, a trombone, a trumpet player, three saxophone players, one of whom also played the clarinet. The last member of the group was an accordionist. It is unbelievable the number of accordions that you hear played on the streets here---very talented people. They were a young group that played lively and happy music that emphasized lung capacity, speed, and range of sound. The bass drummer had a tennis racket fastened to his drum. A bit strange. He used the racket as one of his sticks after he dropped on the ground—planned, I am sure. He did quite well with the tennis racket, must to the consternation of band instructors everywhere. They were fun and actually moved venues in the middle of the performance with the audience invited to move with them in a Pied Piper formation.
Once their performance was over, it was off to get some food from the vendors. We tried some noodles and vegetables…..very tasty, but extremely salty. Then we went off down the street to pick up a bratwurst at the German stand. Then we walked on and found a fresh roasted pork, so we had a pork sandwich, and finished it off with an ice cream cone. Stop laughing….we didn’t each have this….Neil and I shared each of these. Pete and Jess did a similar lunch.
Opera was our next stop. We headed to one of the local pubs that was hosting a scene from an opera. When we got there it was already crowded, so we sat in the outside garden. Jess and I stood by a door at the side of the pub and listened to and watched part of the opera. The door was the escape route for the young female star. It was fun, but of course, melodramatic. While listening to that we checked out the rest of our agenda….it was a fiber art display.
The fiber art display was up the hill by Pete’s school. We had time so we took the scenic and more gentle route up the hill. It was still steep, but not as brutal as the hill between their flat and school. We walked through an historic neighborhood and through part of the university, including the department of architecture. We got to the fiber arts display to discover that it was already closed. Oops. We walked down the hill to the flat for potty and drink stop.
One more performance on our list: the Hutnuk dancers were performing at the Merchant City Building. This dance group used a combination of traditional dances of India and modern dance. The group was made up 3 young women and 3 young men with an abundance of dances. They incorporated several costume changes within their performance. The performance was fun and energetic. There were a number of children at this performance enjoying the colors and the fast paced movements. It was a fun venue with people standing and sitting on the floor around the stage which was a large square hard wrestling mat. .
Back to the flat where people had things that needed to be accomplished before morning. Pete and Jess had work / school things to do and Neil and I had packing to do.
Steps: 8,659
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