The 2013 annual Festival of Nations opens tomorrow at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge Saturday, March 23 and lasts through April 22. It’s One World Party as the cultures of more than 25 countries come together in a month-long festival of music, dance, costume and foods from around the world.
image courtesy of Dollywood
From China this year comes the award-winning Cirque Shanghai, combining traditional and modern Chinese acrobatics in amazing displays of physical strength and incredible feats of balance, in a heart-pounding, visual feast of costume and sheer stunts that will leave you breathless and awed.
India gives us 25 dancers and hundreds of costumes served up in a stunning performance fusing dance, theatre and visual effects in an explosion of color and energy by Mystic India, a troupe distilling all the lavish glamor of the Bollywood film industry into a spectacular show.
Original acts from around the world bring us haunting French folk music from traditional to modern, unique concert-music innovations from Poland using glass instruments, the drums of Africa and the evocative sound of Ugandan children’s choirs, the complex harmonies and African rhythms of Zambia, and the pipes of South American music from the Andes.
image courtesy of Dollywood
Not to be left out of the world party, Australia offers us a blend of theatre, dance, comedy and circus in a unique act that bends and sways atop 15-foot poles – be sure to bring your camera. And while you’re on the streets of Dollywood, look for the Bavarian stilt dancers at loose throughout the festival, a gift from Germany.
Experience the diversity of Dollywood’s Festival of Nations in the most simple way at World Passport to Food, an international menu of the world’s authentic cuisine. Food is how we travel the world, and the Festival makes it easy by bringing the feast to us.
A month of colorful bedazzlement, sights and sounds, smells and flavors, starts tomorrow right here in the Smoky Mountains, reminding us, as the Festival of Nations says, that we all smile in the same language.
For more information and the entertainment schedule visit Dollywood Festival of Nations
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TIP: Wondering where to stay during your visit to the Smokies? Check our Gatlinburg cabin rentals and our Pigeon Forge cabins, as well as the Wears Valley cabins on the quiet side of the Smoky Mountains. If the family pet is coming too, check our updated list of pet friendly cabins in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
