TOWNSHEND — Twenty middle school students and their teachers from Inner Mongolia arrived at Leland & Gray Middle and High School on Oct. 15 for two weeks of music and dance workshops with L&G students and performances for Windham Central and L&G students and the community.
The visitors are living with host families in the West River Valley and enjoying the fall foliage, local food, and Vermont hospitality.
A performance for the Leland & Gray community is set for Friday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the school gymnasium.
Outstanding instrumental performances by teachers and students on traditional Chinese instruments such as the yangqin, guzheng, erhu, and pipa will be joined by horsehead fiddles (matouqin) played by Mongolian students Bilege and Boerboesen.
The evening's festivities include Mongolian long song singing, throat singing by members of the ensemble, and Cao Wen's rendition of Chinese folk songs.
Beautifully costumed dancers will perform the bowl dance and a variety of other dances, which have won national awards for dancers from the Art College.
Admission is free. Donations to the Maple Scholarship for Arts Education, initiated by the Asian Studies Outreach Program at the University of Vermont and the Vermont friends of the Arts College of Inner Mongolia University, are cheerfully accepted.