ARBA MINCH, Ethiopia -- On day one of the Festival of a Thousand
Stars, there were so many performers that the emcee had to rush them
along as the sun began to set. “Aishe, ameseganehlu,” he said -- “Okay,
thank you,” in Ethiopia's national language, Amharic -- as each troupe
raced through its final seconds of singing and dancing while other
performers waited in the wings.
There were 56 troupes in all gathered in the southern city of Arba
Minch, or Forty Springs, for a three-day festival of music and culture.
Each represented an ethnic group of southern Ethiopia, and each had a
crew of performers in traditional costumes. The annual celebration
centers around an outdoor stage ringed by microphones in the middle of a
massive stadium; this year, thousands streamed in to watch the
musicians, eat traditional foods and buy handmade crafts. The festival
is funded by the Christensen Fund, a nonprofit organization based in San
Francisco that backs bio-cultural diversity projects around the world.
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Dancers perform at Ethiopia's Festival of a Thousand Stars in Ethiopia, Dec. 2013.
Jacey Fortin
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Southern Ethiopia is one of the most diverse regions on earth. As a
whole, the country is home to more than 80 ethnic groups and languages.
The 56 featured at the festival all hailed from regions south of the
central capital city of Addis Ababa.
Arba Minch is situated in the East African Rift Valley, which is often called the cradle of humanity since some of the earliest
homo sapiens
fossils have been found there. If the theory that all of modern
humanity originated in the area is correct, then residents the Rift
Valley boast a longer ancestral history than can be found anywhere else.
Culture here runs deep, says festival staffer and Arba Minch resident
Silas Godana. “Southern Ethiopia is rich in diversity, because the Rift
Valley is where humanity began,” he said. He mentioned the long history
of traditional craftsmanship in the area and pointed to his vest, made
by members of the Goma ethnic group with its trademark pattern of red,
yellow and black. “There's no need to buy industrially produced
clothes,” he added. “We wear handmade.”
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Organizers pose backstage at Ethiopia's Festival of a Thousand Stars in Ethiopia, Dec. 2013.
Jacey Fortin
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Most of the festival attendees came from the area and were familiar
with the various ethnic groups performing, cheering especially loudly
when the most well-known singers and dancers -- the Goma, the Dirashe,
the Wolayta and more -- approached the stage.
“There are so many cultures in Southern Ethiopia, and Arba Minch is
the central city,” said Josef Kuma, a coordinator at the festival. “Arba
Minch should be an international tourist destination, and the
organizers want to develop that idea.” The town is a calm but busy one;
it's big enough to have a small airport but remote enough to act as a
base for U.S. military drone missions into Somalia and Yemen. Mango and
banana trees are everywhere, and you can see crocodiles basking in the
sun if you take a boat ride along the shores of the nearby Lakes Chamo
and Abaya.
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A security worker keeps the kids in line at Ethiopia's Festival of a Thousand Stars in Arba Minch, Dec. 2013.
Jacey Fortin
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The Festival of a Thousand Stars -- its name is a reference to the
myriad ethnicities and cultures in southern Ethiopia -- isn't widely
known outside of Arba Minch, but the organizers hope that will change in
the coming years. As it stands, there's more than enough entertainment
to go around.
As the sun began to set on Friday, organizers handed out long orange
candles to the children packed in the front rows, who ran through the
crowd until the entire stadium was illuminated by tiny points of light.
Some of the adults drifted off to a side stall to sample some tej, a
cloudy alcoholic drink brewed from honey. But the dancers kept coming
until nightfall, pounding the stage and playing handmade instruments
even as the crowd began to thin.
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Dancers approach the stage at Ethiopia's Festival of a Thousand Stars in Ethiopia, Dec. 2013.
Jacey Fortin |
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