For the first time in Crawley (West Sussex, United Kingdom) was held the International Folklore Festival "DEW". On 27th and 28th of July, more than 100 participants from Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Uganda, Colombia, England, Scotland, Ireland, India and Russia filled the "Hawth" Theater with vibrant colour and diversity.

The secretary of the festival Carolyne Chikukwa informed that unfortunately some of the groups - from Morocco, Iran and Albania, couldn't attend the festival due to a problem in obtaining visas, however the good news is some local groups. All participants received diplomas for participation.

The show started on Friday evening with an opening ceremony. The Mayor of Crawley was in attendance and the organizers were so happy with his support.

"The opening ceremony started with a beautiful poem from an English poet representing the United Kingdom and the highlight of the evening was a performance from Virgilius Just as a Lithuanian folklore singer." - added Carolyne Chikukwa.

On Saturday the 28 July there were performances from teams representing England, and a pipe band from Scotland.

"The dance groups were from Lithuania 'Versme', a popular folk dance group, India 'Bollysteps' a local Indian dance group and 'Talentos' a Columbian folk dance group from London, An African drumming and damce group from Uganda East Africa and Irish dance group. All the dance groups were very colourful and vibrant and very entertaining to the audience. We had singers from Ukraine , Poland, Lithuania, a traditional fusion band from Morocco and an Indian harmonium. We had poetry from England, Chagos Islands and Uganda Africa which were all so interesting and informative."

The highlight of Saturday was Lucian Wesolowski from Poland who played the sitar, Indian bamboo flute 'bansuri' and other various ethnic stringed instruments. Indian audience were very impressed by his performance!

"We had a wonderful weekend of dance, music, poetry,  singing all the different cultures from all over the world came together to celebrate our festival with us. It was a great success."- said more Carolyne Chikukwa.