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By Biray Alsac
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 10, 1996
This weekend, 53 ethnic and cultural organizations will fill a downtown park with hertiage for the public.Every year around the second week of October, 40,000 to 50,000 people gather at El Presidio Park in downtown Tucson to join the legendary Tucson Heritage Experience Festival. The festivities will be held this weekend, October 11-13, and admission is free for all ages. "Come down and see what Tucson offers culturally," said Melvin Hill, volunteer in charge of programming.
Under the direction of Mike Stafford and sponsored by Pepsi, this year's theme is "Connecting Cultures." Stafford hopes that this year will turn out a wider mix of people and a larger attendance due to promotional help from Pepsi. T.H.E. Festival will feature a wide variety of food, folk art demonstrations, musicians, dances, storytellers, children's activities and an assortment of workshops.
This year the festival will present a variety of new and returning performers. Dean Armstrong and the Arizona Dance Hands, Triq Rasool and the Songhai West African drummers, the Seven Pipers Society, the UA Balalaika Orchestra, the Sampaguita Filipino Club dancers are just several of the returning exhibitions at the T.H.E. Festival.
Over 40 booths representing different cultures will be serving a wide variety of food for those who prefer to taste "bits and pieces" of the world. Delicacies from Austria, Algeria, Croatia, Hawaii, and Hungary to India, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam and more will be displayed for people to sample.
Dennis Evans, one of 20 volunteers who contributes his time and energy to make the festival run smoothly says, "It is a wonderful way for students on campus to get some sense of the groups of people that make up the wider community of Tucson."
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