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Using everything from music and dance to gourd carvings, Milwaukee’s Holiday Folk fair International will once again prove "it’s a small world after all."

The Milwaukee holiday staple celebrates its 68th year Friday through Sunday with the theme "Celebrate Cultures without Borders." As spokesman Al Durtka says, the fair "presents an opportunity for people of various ethnicities to come together and explore."

Again this year, the fair is a mix of the fresh and the traditional.

A poignant new photo exhibit, "Refugee Voices: Photos & stories by Refugees," tells the saga of refugees from Myanmar and Sudan who live in the United States.

And for the first time this year, the Callen Cooking Stage features nine Peace Corps members doing cooking demos to explain cuisine from the countries where they did their volunteer work.

Visitors can also sample a new kaleidoscope of musical styles at this year’s fair, including the sounds of MidEast Beat, a Racine-based band that performs Armenian, Arabic, Assyrian and Greek songs at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

But regular folk fair visitors will also find that their favorite fair elements will return this year. Ethnic food vendors remain at the heart of the fair, and this year the World Café brings back traditional dishes from around the globe.

Crafters will again demonstrate their skills. Barbara Rothwell of Oregon, Wis., will reveal the ancient secrets of one of the most unusual crafts – turning ordinary gourds into everything from purses to oil lamps and dolls.

Rothwell points out that, unlike pumpkins, gourds are a long-lasting craft medium because they don’t rot.

"a gourd is functional, they’ve been used as bowls and water carriers. They’re extremely light so they make great jewelry and they dry so hard that they make great musical instruments and even clocks. and they’re fun. you can look at a gourd and know what you’re going to turn it into."

Fair visitors can again stroll down Heritage Lane to talk to representatives of cultures from Native American to Romanian. International bazaar vendors give visitors dozens of shopping opportunities.

With three stages, the folk fair is a top venue for seeing ethnic dance in Milwaukee. this year, the Nefertari Dancers return to represent the local African-American community.

And the idea of international understanding takes real life form in another dance group coming back to the fair this year. The Alexander Hamilton High School Horon Turkish Folk Dance Ensemble has 28 members and is "almost equally divided between Asians, African-Americans, Caucasians and Hispanics, and we are the most diverse group in the building," says the troupe’s director, Curt Winterfeldt.

What unites the students is their love of Turkish dance, a love that stems from Winterfeldt’s own interest in Turkish culture. Though he is of German heritage, he has two grandchildren who live in Turkey and he visits there often. He’s created a group that wears colorful authentic Turkish costumes and plays Turkish drums as part of its routine.

This year the group will perform dances from eastern Turkey for a reason. "The dances from that region are very energetic, and students like energy. they don’t like slow things," says Winterfeldt.

Other Folk fair highlights include:

American citizenship. The fair’s annual naturalization ceremony on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Kite-mania. Visitors can take imaginary flight through a display of kites from around the world including highfliers from Brazil, China, Peru and Turkey.

Children can build their own kites at the Gift of Wings exhibit and learn how to fly them even indoors through arm motions and fast walking.

An international chess tournament for children. Registration is from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Chinese gaming. Youngsters will demonstrate yo-yos and Go, a Chinese board game, daily at the Chinese cultural exhibit.

An interdenominational religious service. It will be held Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and is open to the public.

For a full schedule of Holiday Folk fair International events, visit folkfair.org

IF YOU GO

What: Holiday Folk fair International

Where: Wisconsin Exposition Center at State fair Park

Hours: 2 to 10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets: Advance tickets $10 each, with family four-packs for $36, at folkfair.org. Admission at the gate will be $12 for adults; $10 for children ages 6 to 12 and those 62 and over; free for children under the age of 5 and military personnel.

Any rock music fan who sat down to compile a list of the greatest British rockers ever would have to start with Paul McCartney and John Lennon of the Beatles, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend of the who and perhaps a few representatives of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

After that, not too far down the list, would be Ray Davies, the co-founder and main creative genius of the feisty, frantic and amazing band called the Kinks.

These days, at age 67, Davies looks like a proper British gentleman in his charcoal gray suit, but he’s still a funny, creative rock ’n’ roll wild man.

Although the Kinks haven’t played together for 15 years, their spirit is alive and well in Davies, who put on a superb show Sunday night in UB’s Center for the Arts.

It was a night of clever acoustic songs, hard-rocking classics and delightful stories from a man who still clearly enjoys getting up in front of an audience.

After a lively opening set by the 88, a talented young band from Los Angeles, Davies took the stage for an acoustic set, backed only by a fine Irish guitar player named Bill Shanley. they worked their way through some wonderful Kinks standards. Davies’ voice was a touch raspy at times, but he can still hit most of the high notes and still puts genuine emotion into songs he’s done a thousand times.

The acoustic set included “I need You,” a snarling version of “I’m Not Like everybody Else” and “Sunny Afternoon,” which — in a music hall packed with Kinks fanatics—quickly turned into a huge sing-along.

“My girlfriend’s run off with my car, gone back to her ma and pa, telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty,” Davies and the audience sang.

“Not true!” he yelled as an aside.

The really special moment in the acoustic set came when Davies got serious and sang “Waterloo Sunset,” a favorite of many Kinks fans.

“I don’t really write love songs. There must be something lacking in me,” he joked, just before he launched into it.

He then laid down an absolutely beautiful version of his most poignant song, and for many in the audience, that was worth the price of admission.

Another delight was “A Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” Davies’ nasty song about a conceited, foppish guy who “flits from shop to shop like a butterfly.”

After 35 minutes of acoustic stuff, the 88 came back out on stage, and Davies began rocking, with Shanley on lead guitar. the aggregation put some real fire behind a song list of Kinks oldies that included “Too Much On My Mind,” “20th Century Man,” “David Watts,” “This Is Where I Belong,” “Til the End of the Day” and “All Day and all of the Night.”

Another gem was the bluesy “Nothing In the World,” a song that Davies said he wrote in the pangs of heartbreak at age 17 after his first girlfriend deserted him for a close friend.

“All those years ago, she broke my heart,” Davies said after the song. “And how, I can’t even remember her name.”

A 1990 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Davies concluded the show after about 90 minutes of music with an explosive version of “You Really got me,” a monster hit from 1964 blessed with one of the best guitar riffs ever created.

Good as it all was, you couldn’t help but wonder if Davies will ever reunite with his often-estranged younger brother, Dave, for one last Kinks tour. the brothers have always had a tempestuous relationship that gives an extra sharp edge to their performances.

In recent interviews, Davies has said he hopes to hit the road with the Kinks at least one more time. and at one point, he suddenly asked the audience to give a round of applause for his brother. they did, with great enthusiasm.

“He’s not that good!” Davies cracked.

With guest the 88. Sunday evening in the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts, North Campus, Amherst.

Julius Malema. Photo: Phill Magakoe

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Two Ukhozi FM presenters have been suspended for a month after playing a controversial song about ANCYL president Julius Malema, The Witness newspaper reported on Friday.

The two apparently played the song during the traditional music show Utalagu on Saturday and were suspended on Thursday, the newspaper reported.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago told the newspaper the station decided to take presenters Khathide “Tshatha” Ngobe and Ngizwe Mchunu off air after they played the song, which was not on the playlist.

“this is not about the song, but about the two disregarding the rules. The song was not scheduled on the show’s playlist.

“this decision was made after a meeting in which the two were given a chance to explain themselves, where they did admit to their wrongdoing.”

“The station and the SABC take the breaching of these rules seriously,” said Kganyago.

Izingane Zoma, a maskandi group, reportedly wrote a song accusing Malema of being uncontrollable and of criticising the ANC leadership.

The single, called uMalema, was recently sent to radio stations and was expected to hit the shelves of Durban music shops on Thursday.

African National Congress Youth League secretary general Sindiso Magaqa said it would fight the release of the song in court and would sue the group for defamation.

“If they release that stupid song, we will hit them hard,” Magaqa said.

Kganyago said the presenters had focused on the song because of the controversy it had attracted, disregarding the fact that it was not on the playlist.

“You don’t just go to the archives and retrieve a song without approval. this rule applies to all presenters in all stations,” he said.

The same group released the song, Msholozi, after President Jacob Zuma’s clan name, before he was elected ANC president in 2007. It called for him to be president and for corruption charges against him to be dropped. – Sapa