Pitt Nationality Rooms’ Holiday Open House to Be Held Dec. 4

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh’s Nationality Rooms Program will host its annual holiday open house featuring ethnic song and dance performances and food and gift tables from noon to 4 p.m. Dec. 4 in the Cathedral of Learning Commons Room, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. The event is free and open to the public.

The 27 Nationality Rooms, on the first and third floors of the Cathedral of Learning, will be decorated in traditional fashion with guides in ethnic dress.

Performances by various ethnic groups will be presented every 15 minutes in the Commons Room, including the Chinese Lion dance by the Tzu Chi Academy, German dances by Alpen Schuhplattler and Trachten verein, Austrian dances by G.T.E.V. D’Lustigen Isartaler, Kathak dances and Indian classical dances from Northern India by Anuradha’s Kathak Dance Academy, Ukrainian dances by Poltava Ukrainian Dance Company, as well as Scottish dances. Craft demonstrations will be held throughout the Cathedral, with the Pittsburgh Bobbin Lace being presented in the Croghan Schenley Room.

The following Nationality Rooms committees will provide ethnic foods and items for purchase: African Heritage, Austrian, Chinese, Czechoslovak, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indian, Iranian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Latin American, Polish, Russian, Swiss, Syria-Lebanon, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh, and Yugoslavian.

In addition to the open house, taped tours of the decorated Nationality Rooms are available from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturdays—Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, 10, 17—and from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sundays—Nov. 27 and Dec. 11 and 18.

On Nov. 25 and Dec. 27 through Dec. 31, guided tours will be offered. Tours begin at 10:30 a.m., and the last tour will be dispatched at 2:30 p.m. Tours commence every half hour. Taped tours are unavailable during these times.

The University is closed Nov. 24, Dec. 24, 25, and 26, 2011, and Jan. 1, 2012.

Tickets can be purchased at the Gift Shop on the first floor of the Cathedral of Learning; reservations are not accepted. Admission is  $3 for adults and $1 for youths ages 8-18.

For more information, visit www.pitt.edu/~natrooms or call 412-624-6000.

   ###

11/21/11/mab/lks