Unique mix of dance and song featured in Des Moines

It’s an unusual double-bill. Dancers and singers from the Tai Dam culture will perform today with Scottish Highland Dancers and a bagpiper — on the same stage, not at the same time. Betty Andrews, director of the Culture Cafe in Des Moines, says all of the performers live in central Iowa — although many of them were born somewhere else.Andrews says the Tai Dam are considered a people without a homeland — as they’ve fled persecution over the centuries in Thailand, China and Vietnam. About six thousand Tai Dam live in the U-S; 45-hundred of them are in Iowa. Andrews says the Tai Dam Dance Troupe offers a wonderful attraction.Andrews says they wear beautifully colored attire and perform intricate, graceful steps in time-honored dances. Fancy footwork is also a feature of the Scottish Highland dancers, clothed in plaid kilts, conveying the motions of warriors preparing for battle in one dance.Both the Tai Dam and Scots will have exhibits set up to highlight their cultures and the Tai Dam will be selling native food samples. The show’s at 2 p-m at the Des Moines Playhouse.