Another Successful Night!

An appearance by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, the honourable John Harvard, highlighted day three of Folklorama at the Japanese Pavilion. The crowds are continuing to grow and the bus tours are arriving in droves, yet a comfortable feeling of "being in control" is being felt by many of the volunteers. From an entertainment standpoint everything is running smoothly and the performers are relaxed and having fun, we couldn't ask for anything more.

Highlights and observations from night 3:

• Karate returned to the Pavilion after taking a hiatus last year. Good to have the variety, because everybody loves to watch more traditional hand to hand combat.
• Jesse debuted his first full night of emceeing for the Pavilion, as last year he shared an evening with Stacey. Jesse's charismatic-style is perfectly suited to this event, he loves to charm the audience with his somewhat sincere, yet always engaging wit and if there's a stage, Jesse will entertain.
• Stay tuned on Wednesday when the Pavilion will stay open later for their first of two nights for a late night party. If you like karaoke be sure to stick around immediately following the 9:45 show (10:30) as Jesse will host this event until about 11:45, hopefully there is enough audience members to the make this entertaining. Part 2 will be on Friday night, so tell your friends!
• It was the first night for the Kaede dancers, mainly the older group. When is Carol going to get better copies of her songs? She still uses cassettes that sound like they have been played over and over and over...you get the idea. The tape hiss is getting so bad, it literary sounds like an old scratched up 78 from the 40's. I could have sworn someone put them on CD a few years ago. The best thing would be to find the original source and copy it directly to disc or digital file (will need lots of noise-reduction done to it).
• Tonight was the last night for Kenji, one of our singers. It was also Keiko Saito-Hanssen's last night as one of the Aurora dancers this year and possibly for a while. I heard she might be taking a break from dancing, but I'll believe it when I see it. Keiko has been a solid performer for Aurora through the years and first got acquainted with her back when the Pavilion was held at the Cultural Centre. She is back on stage Thursday night as the emcee of the main stage show.

Wednesday should be exciting as Yuki (I'm not sure what his last name is...anyone know?) makes his first appearance as a singer and as I mentioned earlier, late night karaoke. I think it'll be a good time to try one of those Folklorama beers!