Denver’s McNichols Building was aswirl in color Sunday, as people from around the world showed off their native garb, cuisine, dance and arts.
The event was the second annual Denver Sister Cities Worldwide Festival.
Elham Babiker, 42, sat at a table with other Sudanese women, and made Henna seeds into a dye used for body art. But Babiker and other Sudanese wanted to bring attention to more than just cosmetic possibilities.
“We need to stop the genocide,” in Darfur, said Magdi Yunis, 54, president of the Darfur Community of Denver.
During an ongoing civil war, the Sudanese government has engaged in mass slaughter in the Darfur region of Sudan, according to the US. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Yunis wore a flowing white gown called a jellabiya, his head crowned with a white turban.
Denver has 10 sister cities throughout the world, an arrangement that offers connections between communities that are mutually beneficial.
The festival featured interactive arts, crafts, language, stories and cooking stations. There was an African fashion show, African and Mexican dance, Italian opera, Spanish language lessons and a pair of Mongolian contortionists.
Harber Chang, 69, who moved to the United States from Taiwan, dipped a soft writing pen into a bowl of black ink and wrote the names of attendees who asked for them in bold Chinese characters.
Calligraphy takes only a few hours to learn, “but you have to practice every day,” he said.
Chinese calligraphers bring the same sort of concentration to their art that martial artists use to focus physical power, Chang said. “You feel your energy and power,” he said.
Denver’s Sister Cities are: Brest, France; Takayama, Japan; Nairobi, Kenya; Karmiel, Israel; Potenza, Italy; Cuernavaca, Mexico; Chennai, India; Kunming, China; Axum, Ethiopia; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Sister Cities International is a nonprofit membership association for U.S. sister city organizations.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/dpmcghee
