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Arts Alert Thursday, July 13 by Cathleen Bond
There's a fascinating exhibit currently on display at the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre. Full Circle First Contact Vikings and Skraelings in
Newfoundland and Labrador traces how our ancestors walked out of
Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago and settled in either Asia or
Europe.
Now let's return to the European settlers. The Vikings and their great ships refused to be thwarted by the roiling churn of the Atlantic. Ambitious, brave
and fuelled by a need to find new lands they hopped into their "ocean going
knarrs." In 1000 AD Leif Ericson and his crew landed in Newfoundland, to be
greeted by a people they called the Skraelings. It took a hundred thousand
years for the people who took the right turn to meet the people who had
travelled left.
The Viking Sagas "describe the meetings between the two cultures as fleeting
-- sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent. Within two decades, the Vikings
retreated from their L'Anse aux Meadows camp back to Greenland. The reasons
behind the abandonment can only be speculated." Sounds like a good trouncing
to me. And this sounds like an incredible exhibit. L'Anse aux Meadows is the
only authenticated Viking settlement in the New World. Plus there will Viking
artifacts made of iron, ivory, wood and gold on display, right alongside
Aboriginal artifacts constructed from bone, stone, ivory and wood. Come and
see how the "Viking Sagas and Aboriginal oral history combine to tell the
story of humanity." Gwynne Dyer's distinctive voice provides the narrative as
vistors take the trip through history.
The exhibit will be at the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre until August 6,
2000, and in the Corner Brook Museum from August 25 to October 9, 2000. The
exhibit will then tour across North America.
Full Circle Story
Hey Mr.Tambourine Man
Grab your guit-boxes, folk fans, and get ready for the Vancouver Folk Music Festival this weekend. Early bird tickets are on sale at the festival office.
Some headliners include Mary Jane Lamond, Naomi Pelzman and the Klezmer Red
Hots, Barb Dwyer and Beolach among others. The festival features music from
all around the globe, promising an incredible weekend of great entertainment.
Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Most of Canada's symphony orchestras shut down over the summer months, or are restricting themselves to a few outdoor concerts on big fireworks nights. But
the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is keeping going for one more performance at the Orpheum Theatre, and tonight it's called in The Irish Tenors (John McDermott, Anthony Kearns and Ronan Tynan). Are you up for hearing a version
of "Toora-Loora-Looral" with a whole symphony behind the singers?
The Irish Tenors
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The ones who took a left faced the unpassable barrier of the Atlantic
Ocean. However the ones that took a right passed through Asia and eventually
arrived at the narrow Bering Strait -- which offered a gateway to North America. Historians estimate that these travellers arrived in Newfoundland about 5,000 years ago.
Twenty clicks through Canadian
culture: Test your memory, from Anne of Green Gables to Shift.