This past weekend, I attended and helped present some artists at the National Folk Festival in Salisbury, Maryland. The National is a long weekend event organized by the National Council for the Traditional Arts in partnership with local organizations, which moves every three years (theoretically at least) between cities willing to give up a substantial portion of their downtown to street closings, endure the infrastructure that it takes to put up stages on said streets, and brave throngs of locals and tourists who (hopefully) swarm to the event.
It’s a huge gamble for a relatively small city. But, to their credit, Salisbury bought into it (thanks to the persuasive organizers and a feeling that the city “deserved” such an honor as a prestigious national festival) and the result seems positive. Even though it rained most of the weekend, people came out with their umbrellas and their rain slickers in numbers not expected in such weather.
As usual, the line up of artists was stellar, including some things that Salisburians have surely never experienced and never even imagined existed. Inuit throat singers? Peruvian scissors dancers? Tap dancing feet as a percussion instrument? Check. And some local things that tourists didn’t know was a thing… like muskrat skinning and cooking.
On the Sunday, I worked with participants from the Pocomoke Indian National during a sort of pop-up presentation at their demonstration area. They decided to show the visitors huddling under the tent, sheltering out of the persistence drizzle, how to make fire with friction, using a board and a sort of reed. The visitors watched patiently as the participants tried time and again to coax a spark out of the damp wood. Finally, a tiny spark emerged and took hold into an ember, which was nurtured into a warm flame. Cheers arose from the small but attentive audience.
I thought that spark and the resulting flame an apt metaphor for the National in Salisbury. From the spark of the idea to stage the National in the city, the flame of the festival resulted, and will hopefully bloom (despite the damp and other obstacles that might be thrown in the way) into two more years of an exciting event showcasing excellent folk practitioners from the region and the world.