Community Arts

The 2016 International Festival achieved its goals for participation and quality of displays and performances. Our location in a large greenhouse creates a wonderful "outdoor" fair feeling in an indoor space which works for late fall in Minnesota. Another new element was to invite a large Ukrainian youth dance troupe to perform. Their energy was amazing and there fun connection with our Mexican youth folk dancers as both sets of young people enjoyed each other’s performances! One thing we are considering doing differently is to add some additional elements or marketing that keep parents of older youth at the festival longer. Some of them drop off their kids but don't stay themselves. We want to change that in future years. We reached our attendance goals with about 700 attending. We were very pleased with the diverse group of countries represented. This is the one arts event in our community where people from different cultures all come together in one place. Asking people to participate in the festival has been our best way to really reach diverse audiences and make them welcome and included. Festival organizers spend time talking with attendees and encouraging them to be participants the next year. Several new immigrants came who said they would host a booth next year. 700 participants enjoyed 5 performance groups and 18 country booths. High satisfaction was expressed by participants based on verbal and written comments. New artist demonstrations including Ukrainian Egg Decorating, Henna, Anime and Origami were very well received.