site.btaExpats Festival Founder Holds "Village Square" Tradition in Her Heart

"To participate in a project developed around the concept of the village square is to share in something that you carry in your heart," said Anita Ekenova from Lyon, France during the opening of the 11th travelling Bulgarian folklore festival Expats Join Hands in Worldwide Dance, in Munich, Germany, on Friday.

Ekenova is the initiator of the festival and organizer of its first and tenth editions. She heads the Bulgarian dance group Ot Izvora in Lyon and an eponymous cultural association in the French city.

In her greetings address in Munich, she said that the tradition of the village square inspires strength. "Once you step onto that square, you always return, stronger, with more friends and with even more creative energy."

She recalled that the gathering was created in 2015: "Back then we had many ideas, but one was the most important, and I want to remind you of it today: to meet as if at home, to dance hand in hand, to be friends, and to applaud together what our friends have prepared for our village square."

Ekenova added that this is not a competitive arena but a stage on which participants express their love and respect for one another.