Wednesday, August 19, 2015

SIFF 2015: City Parade of Cultural Troupes

When we were driving from Jalan Tun Razak towards the roundabout along Jalan Pantai in Kampong Air on 12 August at around 1.45pm, we were surprised to be stopped by police outriders. I was trying to figure out who the VVIP could be that entered the city centre in the middle of the day and had caused such traffic interruption to the general public.
 
Before I could finish my internal conversation, I heard loud blaring of music and saw contingent of cultural troupes parading along Jalan Pantai towards the KK town centre. It then dawned on me that KK is hosting the 10th Sabah International Folklore Festival from 10 – 15 August 2015. We stopped our car and immediately joined the crowd to witness this rare event. This year, there are 16 troupes from 16 participating countries including host Malaysia. This parade reminded me of the last parade I witnessed in August 2014 in London – The Notting Hill Carnival in West London.
 
I loved the variety and colour of the costumes and the air of festivity. Sabah again proved to be the most ideal place in Malaysia to showcase tolerance and acceptance of cultural diversity.

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Having seen the street parade, we decided that it's worth our time to see the performance by all the troupes at the Penampang Cultural Centre that night which we did.
The Mexican Troupe.
Performance by the Philippines Troupe.
The Latvia Troupe.
The Russian Troupe.

1 comment:

Min said...

Looks fun!