Ethiopian Dance Troupe Fails to Appear
A touring troupe of 50 Ethiopian dancers and singers failed to appear for performances Friday and Saturday at the Starlight Amphitheatre in Burbank. About 2,000 concert goers were turned away Friday night; 50 showed up for Saturday’s show.
The reason for the absence of the Addie Ababa National Folk Ensemble and its whereabouts remained a mystery. Show producer Laurie Scott said she had not talked to representatives of the group for six days. “I don’t know what happened, and I’m very distressed,” she said.
Scott and other organizers said they also had not been able to reach the Ethiopian consulates in New York and Washington, D.C, for information on the group. The consulates were monitoring the tour, she said.
The troupe last month launched a tour with performances in several U.S. and European cities, Cuba, and Mexico. The tour was designed as a “international gesture of gratitude for the humanitarian gestures of the American people” to victims of the Ethiopian famine.
She said she had only been in sporadic communication with the performers and their representatives in recent weeks on the tour.
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