While the self realization process can last from years up to a lifetime, one event is fast forwarding the introduction to one of the Southwest's greatest cities at the Tucson Meet Yourself Festival.
The Tucson Meet Yourself Festival (TMY) is a three day event highlighting the array of folk art, performers, and music that epitomize Tucson. The event was founded by Dr. James “Big Jim” Griffith, in 1974. The 2010 event will feature more than 150 performers, folk artists and60 ethnic groups.
The Tucson Meet Yourself Organization says that the event celebrates diversity through an array of traditions from food, crafts, art, music and cultural heritage of communities in the Southwest.
“Everywhere you turn will be an extravaganza of great music, dance, arts and culture celebrating Tucson’s diverse ethnic traditions,” says TMY Executive Director Mia Hansen
The organization says that the 2010 Tucson Meet Yourself Festival will double in size compared to last year‘s event (and that event welcomed 70,000 people in attendance).
The Festival is set to transform Downtown Tucson into a world-class showcase composed of five festival areas: Meet Your Neighbors in El Presidio Park, Get Hands On Global Rhythms in Jacomé Library Plaza, Meet Your Soul in La Placita Village, Traditions of Home & Games People Play in TCC Plaza and Meet the Street on Church Street from Alameda to Cushing Street. Each area will include Performance plazas, Folk arts demonstrations and marketplaces, and Flavors of the Fest Food Vendors.
Special festival events will include: Lowrider & Classic Car Show, Corrido Contest – Mexican and Borderland-style ballads and the Tucson Medical Center Get Moving Tucson 10-Mile Run/5K Family Fun Run and Walk.
In addition, Tucson Meet Yourself, partnering with the Arizona Humanities Council, will kick off the Arizona tour of the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit, “Key Ingredients: America by Food,” scheduled to run from October 2010 – August 2011 across the state. At the Tucson Meet Yourself kick-off, there will be exhibits and foodways programming, with broad community interaction, focused in an outdoor Key Ingredients Pavilion and Kitchen Stadium. The programming is being planned, moderated and implemented by outstanding humanities scholars, chefs and foodways experts. After the Tucson Meet Yourself kick off, the Smithsonian exhibit will travel to six rural communities across Arizona, intended to inspire the gathering, celebration and preservation of the finest of what rural America has to offer.
To Learn More
Tucson Meet Yourself, http://www.meetyourselftucson.org.
