Community/Traditional Arts

National Folk Festival plants seed for annual Bangor folk arts festival


	Performers at the National Folk Festival present traditional arts from across the country and the world.

By making the summer folk festival an annual event, the City of Bangor is investing in the arts for all of the many benefits that it brings - economic, educational, cultural and community-building.

The last National Folk Festival to be held in Bangor will be on August 27, 28 and 29 of this year. Folk artists from around the country will perform on the Bangor waterfront for an audience of tens of thousands.

This year's show will be as diverse and exciting as the past two. It will include performances ranging from Sheila Kay Adams's Appalachian songs and ballads, to Blinky and the Roadmasters, who play the Crucian Scratch music of the U.S. Virgin Islands. At the festival's five stages, people from across the United States will perform songs, dances and rituals from a myriad of cultures.

But after the musicians and dancers have gone home, after the lights and tents and stages are packed up and the National Folk Festival leaves Bangor for its next host city, the festival's legacy will continue on. It has brought much good to Bangor over the past two years: free access to diverse performing arts, stronger community spirit, a higher cultural profile for the city, and a huge cash influx for the local economy.

In fact, the festival has done so much good that the City of Bangor announced in March 2004, that it will continue to host a summer arts festival on the Bangor waterfront.

The Bangor community now believes in the power of the festival, and in the city's capacity to hold a world-class event. It was not always that way, says Pauleena MacDougall, director of the Maine Folklife Centre at the University of Maine.

When the festival was first proposed, there was some skepticism as to whether the city could pull it off. After all, Bangor is the smallest city to host the event, and there were questions about how locals would respond to a huge crowd descending on the city's waterfront. Also, says MacDougall, local residents were wondering, "If Bangor throws a party, will people come?"

They sure did. In 2002, an estimated 80,000 people came to the festival. For three days, dozens of performing artists made music, danced, told stories and gathered to share their traditions.

Bangor had the largest opening night crowd in festival history that year with 10,000 people turning out. The 2002 initiative was led by a small group of volunteers, the City of Bangor, the Eastern Maine Development Corporation and the Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau. After the success of the first year, the community support for the event grew. Festival staff and volunteers now number nearly 900.

"After 2002, people said, 'Yeah, we can do this,'" says Heather McCarthy, executive director of the National Folk Festival in Bangor. "Bangor received validation. There was increased community pride."

The 2003 festival was even more successful and McCarthy hopes that this year's event will surpass last year's 100,000 attendee mark. She also hopes that the community support for the festival will continue as Bangor initiates its own event.


	Augusta resident Kwabena Owusu gave a workshop in Ghanain drum-making at the 2003 festival.

"We are going to have festival staff and volunteers and city staff, all of whom will be able to make sure this happens," says McCarthy.

McCarthy says the benefits of the festival extend beyond the event itself. The festival brought an estimated $3.7 million into the local economy each year. It also increased Bangor's cultural profile, both in Maine and beyond. McCarthy also thinks that bringing so many folks into Bangor for the festival may have helped to increase visits to Bangor for shopping and events at other times of the year.

MacDougall, of the Maine Folklife Center, says that the festival has had an even greater impact on the Bangor community. By making quality traditional arts freely available to local residents, participation in other cultural events in the area has increased.

"Bangor's Greek Orthodox Church decided to have a booth in the ethnic food section of the festival," says MacDougall. "They danced traditional Greek dances around the outside of the booth. Now, Greek dancing and language are being taught to young people at the church."

In another example, MacDougall says the Twilight Delight Concert Series on Bangor's waterfront included folk and ethnic concerts for the first time last year and attracted much larger audiences than it had in previous years.

MacDougall says the folk festival is also an important opportunity for Maine folk artists to show their work on a national stage. In 2003, instrument makers from around the state, including harp-makers from Houlton and fiddle makers from Gorham, taught festival audiences about their crafts. This summer, Maine boat builders will do the same.

"Ralph Stanley is going to be featured at the festival this year," says MacDougall. "He is a National Heritage Award winner. Several members of the Boat Builder's Hall of Fame will also be there to share their years of experience and generations-worth of traditional knowledge."

Participation in the festival, MacDougall says, will increase the profile of Maine's folk artists nationally and locally.

By making the summer folk festival an annual event, the City of Bangor is investing in the arts for the all of the many benefits that brings - economic, educational, cultural and community-building.

On the whole, McCarthy says, the festivals have changed the way people think about Bangor.

"People want to see things happen here," she says. "I think the future will look back and say, 'We weren't sure we could do it but we succeeded above everybody's dreams.'"

For more information, please visit www.nationalfolkfestival.com.