(As printed in the Quarter 4/2005 Issue of The Belly Dancer Magazine)
Travels with Erna
(Erna Woo-Bellingham, WA)
This spring and summer proved to be a very busy traveling and adventurous one for me, from "Shimmy By The Sea", Texas to Maryland to participating in an Ancient Egyptian Healing Workshop where I do the chants and dances, and then to Paris, France - the city of lights.
I called this group to Paris, the "Hawaiian Contingency". It included my sister who is a professor of art at the University of Hawaii, The Director of the Hawaiian Studies, a professional photographer, a writer and another art professor. So we were definitely in the art mode and wanted to explore a lot of museums which is what we did with a lot of other side trips to many historic places.
The Louve was such an amazing place with so much to see so I targeted the Egyptian exhibits and took many pictures especially of the musical instruments and images of the neters which is my passion these days. They even had a few images from Hawaii on exhibit. Yes, I did run into Mona Lisa and Venus in my travels and tried to get in as much as I could in the amount of time that we had. The whole city is so historical and the architect is amazing. It was amazing to see the obelisk that Napolean took from Egypt capped in gold paint to similate the original fashion in which they were made.
Since we had planned to be there for 2 weeks, I decided to take up an invitation from my cousin who does business in Latvia to go for a 4 day visit there. Now this truly is an interesting place in the Baltics and a very strategic one also. It is the gate way to Northern Europe and had only regained their sovereignty with in the last 15 years or so. This is a country that has been occupied by many other countries for so many years but I found the Latvian people to be so wonderful. The architecture of the area that I stayed in was somewhat of a tourist attraction, for the buildings were of the art deco period and many renovations were in process.
I looked for local belly dancers but found only a few Turkish Restaurants but was not able to get to these places so I decided to tour the museums. The State Museum of Art in Riga is where I found this gem of a painting by Karlis Huns ( 1830-1877) entitled The Young Gipsy Woman painted in 1870, oil on canvas. 125 x 90 cm. Upon enter the room where this painting hung I was instantly mesmerized by the contrast in subject matter and style of this painting. It stood out like a diamond amongst all the others. The museums origins in the mid-19th century is characterized by his works and other Latvian artists. She carries an Egyptian crafted tambourine and her features are very exquisite and refined in nature. I stood there for a very long time taking in the beauty and light of this magnificent painting. He was able to capture the essence of this young girl in such profound way.
I am so grateful to be able to share this painting with you thru this magazine, with the permission of the museum. This was definitely a jewel in my travels. Until another adventure….Aloha, Erna (c) 2005 Life Arts, Inc. August 29,2005
