YEREVAN, MAY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. "It's a great honour for me to be in your country. Here people are warm and hospitable. I am glad that I'm in a far and hospitable Armenia," Ken Duncan, the "Yellow Bird" apache tribe dance group head stated at the May 25 press-conference taken place in Yerevan. According to Ken Duncan, the "Yellow Bird" dance group may be considered a family group as well, as his wife, daughter and seven sons are involved in it. And the group's name is his wife's maiden tribe name. Besides the family members, apaches of other tribes are also involved in this apache group having creative history of more than 20 years. According to Ken Duncan, the primary mission of the dance group is to preserve and pass to generations American Indians' traditions. He mentioned that besides dancing performances, their group also performs ancient stories and shows on those themes. According to Duncan, as a dance group of American aborigines, they present different phenomena of nature by music and dancing performances. And according to him, culture is important for everybody understands "where he comes from and where he goes to." Besides the concert mission, according to their ancestors' traditions, the group builds apache villages and settlements in different countries of the world. One of Duncan's sons presented his music instrument, a pipe belonged to American aborigines by which he performed an interesting music work: when a boy decided to court a girl, he starts playing pipe and after the 4th performance, he gave it to the chosen girl. As for the problem of using together the modern techniques and apache traditions, according to Ken Duncan, they work and create by using both variants: for example, "during the period of time when young girls come to age, the whole tribe goes up to hills and implements traditional ceremonial rites." And in other cases, of course, they make use of technics. 50 thousand apaches live today in the U.S. who has a sovereign status there. The "Yellow Bird" group has had concert tours during these years in different countries of the world. They must leave for England immediatly after the Armenian tours.

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