Kazaks Jubilee Concert

Last night I had a wonderful cultural experience. I went to the Kazaks Jubilee Concert with some of my class mates. It was three hours of singing, dancing, and beautiful costumes all traditional Kazak. For those of you that know less about the Kazaks than I do I will try to help you out. I might be wrong and if I am (Cousin Jack) please correct me.
As far as I understand Krasnodar in old Russian means beautiful gift. After Katherine the Great conquered what is now southern Russia she gave the Krasnodar Krai as a gift to the Kazak people. I’m not sure where the Kazaks were living at the time but they migrated to the Krasnodar Krai where they remain today. To me there traditions seem similar to what I always thought of as Russian traditions.
I don’t really know how to explain last night. They had two large choirs and two large dance teams, one adult and one children’s. The talent was amazing. Each one of their soloists had wonderful voices. One of the soloists was a girl around 7 and her voice and stage presence was like nothing I had ever seen. They were accompanied by traditional Russian instruments as well some more modern instruments. I would have taken pictures but they were forbidden.
The dancers were equally impressive. There were men doing acrobatics and jumping up and down from their knees, I don’t know how they did it. One of the dances was with knives and swords. Here many men dance and take ballet. I think more men in America would be interested in dancing if they could do it with swords and knives.
At the end they had two canon things that shot out confetti for the finale. After almost every performance the crowd would begin to clap in unison and then they performers would do an encore. I think that is why it went so long. It started at 6:30 and ended close to 10. I enjoyed myself immensely and I wish you could have experienced it with me.