Ten high school students and three adults from the Czech Republic traveled to Two Rivers, Wisconsin for a week-long Sister Cities cultural exchange. The delegation was in town September 13-21, 2025 and their visit culminated in a colorful outdoor performance of music and dance on the main stage of Two Rivers’ annual EthnicFest on Saturday, September 20, 2025. The audience loved the lively selection of folk songs and dances, accompanied by two clarinets, trumpet, percussion and a traditional Southwestern Czech bagpipe. From the stage, the performers could see the large downtown Two Rivers mural of the main square of their hometown.
The bagpipe player in the photo above, Kamil Jindrich, is also the head of the Domažlice Sister Cities committee. Kamil has a long history of coming to Wisconsin to share Czech music, first as a performer, and now as a teacher and performer. Years before I ever traveled to the Czech Republic, his bagpipe band toured the American Midwest, even performing in St. Lawrence Church in Stangelville, Wisconsin. We didn’t know each other at the time, but were living parallel lives as St. Lawrence Church was also one of the first places I did my show, as it is where my grandfather was baptized. On my first trip to Domažlice in 2007, Kamil’s father told me the story about a plaque in Domažlice’s main square that is dedicated to the United States Army and its liberation of the city on May 5, 1945.
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