Atlantica - 01.06.2006, Page 11

Get Jazzed *
Time to clean your ears. The 28th
annual Copenhagen Jazz Festival
boasts more than 800 (nope, not a
typo) concerts spread across 95 ven-
ues this year. Jazz legend Herbie
Hancock, a former member of Miles
Davis’s “second great quintet,” will
open the ten-day mid-July festival
with a performance at Copenhagen’s
iconic Opera House. Among the most
anticipated acts of the ten-day fes-
tival are John Scofield, Pat Metheny
and Bill Frisell, three of the planet’s
best jazz guitarists. Also performing
will be American Dianne Reeves, the
Dominican Republic’s Michel Camilo,
and Paris-based Gotan Project. Don’t
miss Nigerian afrobeat legend Tony
Allen and Cameroonian Richard Bona,
who will play two nights in a row at
the Copenhagen JazzHouse, the city’s
best jazz club. For more information,
visit www.jazzfestival.dk. July 7-16.

Dog Days *
You may not have heard of this town
located two-and-a-half hours east of
Des Moines, Iowa’s capital, but Lisbon,
population 2,200, has been home to
one of the country’s best down-home,
G-rated festivals for 97 years: Lisbon
Sauerkraut Days. Nearly 4,000 people
flock to the town’s Main Street every
summer to hit up the rides and parade,
and to wolf down hotdogs and every-
one’s favorite condiment, sauerkraut.
The Lisbon Sauerkraut Committee
serves up 1,200 pounds of sauerkraut
every year, along with 2,500 brats,
1,000 hotdogs, and 750 hamburgers.
In addition to the pedal tractor pull
and the community dances, there’s
an annual cabbage-growing contest.
Expect a mean competition this year.
Visit www.sauerkrautdays.com for
more information. August 10-12.
Feast Your Eyes *
O-bon, Japan’s festival of the dead,
is a Buddhist ceremony and celebra-
tion that has been held for centuries
throughout Japan each summer to
greet the returning spirits of ances-
tors. Sometimes called the Feast of
Lanterns, O-bon has become a time
of year when people return from their
lives in big cities to villages around the
countryside, and its observance has
started to shift from mid-July to mid-
August in accordance with summer
holidays at work. Either way, spirits are
greeted for the two-day festival with a
traditional dance, and bid adieu with
the famous lighting of lanterns sent
off to float along waterways, guiding
the way of the spirits returning to the
land of the dead. July-August.
Sailing Forward *
The Zanzibar International Film
Festival of the Dhow Countries takes
place in historical Stone Town in
Zanzibar, the island off the coast of
Tanzania. Dhows, trading boats built
with a particular kind of triangular
sail, were used as trading ships along
the Indian Ocean, and today are sym-
bolic of the shared culture of countries
united by their path. The ZIFF festival
is a celebration of many aspects of
this Indian Ocean culture, coordinat-
ing international film screenings with
musical and dance performances, art
exhibitions, and workshops. Though
based in Stone Town, villages on
Zanzibar’s islands Unguja and Pemba
will also hold festival events. The dhow
race pictured here was taken at the
8th annual ZIFF festival. www.ziff.or.tz.
July 14-23. a
Four continents celebrateWorld Party
10 AT L A N T I CA
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