Le Mondial des Cultures Drummondville

Le Mondial des Cultures Drummondville

31^st edition

July 5-15, 2012

An international folklore festival Le Mondial des Cultures Drummondville is presently held at the Woodyatt Park, located at the heart of Drummondville, a town in the Centre-du-Québec region. It was formerly called the Festival Mondial de Folklore (World Folklore Festival). It is basically a folk dance festival. During the eleven days of celebrations, dozens of renowned artists and folk ensembles from around the world participate in this event. In recent years, it has attracted on average over 300,000 visitors per year.

On a late afternoon, when I had my chance to travel from Montreal to visit the site, I was able to watch 3 folkloric groups to perform to considerable audiences.

The first one was from Martinique, the photo above. Their cheerful Caribbean music and rhythm quite enchanted the audience as they watched intently the dancers' every move.

Nearby, at the Espace Jeunesse stage, I found a Polish folkloric group. They consisted entirely of adolescents ranging in age from 12 to 17 years old. Yet despite being so young, they put on a great show. Their performance was charming and well appreciated. Their costumes were very colourful, making the girls look radiant.

After they finished the formal part of their performance, they initiated audience participation, inviting all the children present. There was a considerable number of children since the Espace Jeunesse stage is located in the children's playground area. 

The performers have left the formal stage setting and were teaching children a Polish dance right on the grass of the playground area. It was quite obvious that the children appreciated very much this possibility to get involved in a culture they did not know before and to dance to music so different from what they usually hear in Quebec.

The next group I had a chance to see at yet another stage at the festival, was from Cyprus, more specifically, from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Their costumes and music had a distinct oriental flavour. The dance performed on the left seemed to portray either prenuptial or wedding traditions. The girl in red is introduced to a young man in a red vest who opens the red veil and gives the girl a gift.

 
Next was an all male dance by the same Cyprus folkloric group. It was about the skill of balancing glass goblets filled to the brim with water on men's heads. After the formal dance part was performed, the men stood in line one behind the other, with legs wide apart. One of them, having placed several goblets filled with water on his head, began to crawl on his belly between the dancer's legs. The objective was not to spill the water and not to drop any glass goblets the performer was balancing on his head. The audience was thrilled when this was successfully accomplished. 

The Northern Cyprus folkloric group had no problems of getting members of the audience to participate on the stage with them after their final impressive performance act.

The following pictures show the general ambience of the festival grounds.

An ally with boutiques and folkloric items.

Children's playground area.

Russian Matrioshka dolls..

First nations compound.

The Mondial des Cultures is a festival for those who are eager to discover many diverse cultures of the world in line with the official festival's mission to "Develop and hold an international cultural event which displays the facets of various traditions of the world in a festival for the whole family where a brotherhood and universal spirit of peace prevails."

Montreal's Clock Tower Urban Beach

Clock Tower Urban Beach

In Montreal, as a number of other large cities like Paris, Prague, Amsterdam and Toronto, now has its own urban beach with no access to water. It features beautiful white sand, pretty light blue umbrellas, white and blue wooden beach chairs, and refreshing sprinklers so fine that what comes out of them does not even feel like water but only as moisture laden air mist.

From the beach one can see an old grain silo that was converted into condominiums (photo above), as well as Molson brewery, the oldest brewery in North America that continues to produce beer on its very original founding site. Those of you who have never tasted Molson beer, you really should. It might not compare to some European brews, but on the North American scene it tops many large-scale brewed ales.

The Clock Tower beach is located just at the foot of the Clock Tower. It also extends along a marina on one side. On the other side and above it is a parking area which leads to the Clock Tower.The white Clock Tower was in the past centuries the beacon for all the ships intending to docs in what used to be the port of Montreal. Now that area is called Old Port but is no longer opened to commercial ships.

The Montreal’s Urban Beach opened its door to the public on June 16th, 2012. For 2 days, June 16 - 17, the entrance fee was waived to all the visitors. And that was the last time, unfortunately, when that area was open to anybody to freely walk in. 


In the inauguration speech it was claimed that that Montrealers have long demanded more access to St. Laurence river, and that the Port of Montreal authorities have now provided it. The statement was really ironic. I used to like to walk in the little park just at the very tip of the land below the Clock Tower. Now that park is gone, the trees which grew there are gone as well, replaced by stylish umbrellas. The area is no longer freely accessible to all the Montrealers, especially the less affluent ones.

As I was walking recently towards the Clock Tower, looking down at the strip of the beach to my left, three young ladies past me by. I overheard one woman’s  comment, “This is more like a beach club”. Yes, indeed, it does give that impression. Judging from the onlookers in the picture below, they might be of a similar opinion: they cannot enter this beautiful piece of land unless they pay.