2002 Press Releases
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Turkmen performers at the festival, (l-r) Maksat Begnazarov, Lale Begnazarova and Osman Gujimov. |
July 19, 2002
Three Turkmen musicians performed at the Festival "The Silk Road: Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust", held in Washington, D.C., from June 26 through July 7, 2002. For two weeks, local musicians Maksat Begnazarov, Lale Begnazarova and Osman Gujimov performed traditional Turkmen music at the Festival.
With the cooperation of the Ministry of Culture, the U.S. Embassy in Turkmenistan sponsored the participation of this group so that Turkmenistan would be represented in the Festival. This talented trio was selected from an outstanding group of bakhshi performers.
The 36th annual Smithsonian Institution Folklife Festival, which this year was dedicated to Silk Road cultures, gathered nearly 400 musicians, artisans, storytellers and dancers from 25 countries. Nearly two million visitors to the National Mall in Washington saw the various exhibits. Participants from the legendary routes of the Silk Road from Nara, Japan, to Venice, Italy, demonstrated the artistic achievements of their cultures, which included such diverse areas as Turkmen carpet weaving, Mongolian throat singing, Chinese storytelling, Italian papermaking, martial arts presentations, glass blowing, silk-making, and Pakistani truck-painting. The two-week festival in Washington emphasized the intercultural exchange of ideas, art, food, music, and commerce that continues to shape the cultures of the world today.
