Lotus Fest Rocks!!!

I feel sorry for people that don't live in B-town and don't get a chance to experience Lotus Festival the way that we do. Actually, I feel sorriest for those that live here and don't go! It's the most incredible event of the year, even if you don't pay to go to the concerts of the festivities. Here's a little run down of my Lotus weekend. I didn't take my camera with me (I'll correct that next year) so you'll just have to click on this Herald Times link to see the photos of the artists. I'm telling you...it was incredible!

First up, Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas--from Scotland performing Celtic traditional music with fiddle and cello. When they started playing a miracle occurred. Without ever leaving my seat, I was transported to Scotland again and I could feel the tears start behind my eyes. It was just as I remembered from the last time I was there and had attended a party at one of the hotels in Highlands. It was amazing!







Next up: the Dhoad Gypsies from Rajasthan. Equally impressive, they had a fire eater that would literally drink kerosene and hold a torch to his mouth. He had flames shooting all over the tent and it was toasty in there! He also was a belly dancer (yes, men can be belly dancers!) and he balanced heavy items on his head while he danced, oh, and he did it while standing on the sharp end of a blade or on a bed of nails. Cool guy.




Next: March Fourth Marching Band
Another really cool group...we all parched in a parade with them down Kirkwood. They are part Mardi Gras, part Afro-Latin and very groovy, baby. Picture high school marching band gone very, very bad...or good, depending on your perspective.



Next: Amazones

These women (and one man) were incredible. They were named for the women warriors of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey. These women were huge...I doubt any was much under 5'10" or 200 lbs. And they danced not carrying what jiggled or shook. Very empowering. They played djembe drums, which in their country of Guinea, West Africa, was not allowed of women. To read their story and understand what it took for them to come this far, it is to understand fear and empowerment. Wow.

Next: 17 Hippies
Wow, I was dancing. In a tent. With people I didn't know. That's how groovin' they kept it. They are from Germany, but embrace multiple musical genres and sing in German, French, and English. Their songs cover Eastern melodies, Balkan Rhythms, French chanson, Jewish traditional and Cajun tunes. It was awesome and they had instruments I had never seen before. There aren't 17 of them and they aren't hippies, but who cares?


By the time I saw Chic Gamine, a French Canadian group doing world acapella, I was so exhausted I could barely move. I was just glad to find an empty seat in the church and sit for a while. They did incredible things with their voices and were able to transport us from French to Spanish to Africa. Pretty impressive for a bunch of girls from the plains of Manitoba.




After walking through all the venues and soaking in the people I came to one conclusion: Lesbians are the new black. Bloomington is a very diverse polulation, but it isn't restricted to the homelands of the people that now reside here, it is also home to one of the largest gay communities in the U.S. Yes, right here in the US. In one this year's spring issues of Oprah's magazine O, she had statistics in the magazine and one of the stats involved B-town. According to the last census report, a whooping 55% of residents in Bloomington are single. Before all you single gals reading this get excited, I also need to point out that Bloomington has the highest gay population per capita in the US. Yes, per capita we have more queens here than San Fran. The reason we have such a large group of singles....drum roll please....gays can't marry. I have been attending Lotus Festival for the last 6 years and this year I saw the largest turn out of lesbians ever which I think is why they are the new black (you know the whole clothing marketing catch phrase a few years ago...pink, it's the new black, or my personal favorite, 30 is the new 20). I saw lesbians from 15 years-old up to about 65 years old. No kidding. I didn't mind so much, except that during the Amazones concert a couple of them tried to bump and grind on me (I think it was because I was in a mosh pit of lesbians). Evidently the new marketing has worked (and yes, our town does market to the GBLT population) because the gay men were definitely outnumbered this year. Not that I mind necessarily, but I didn't care for all the PDA...and before you start hating me and leaving hate comments, let me just say this: if I'm not getting any lovin' I don't want see any lovin' between anybody else. You find me a nice boyfriend and I might change my stance here.