Asheville’s Mountain Dance & Folk Festival opens Aug. 6
A sense of place. In the wildly creative world of Asheville, the historic legacy of mountain music and dance is an ever-important connection to newcomers and natives alike.
When Asheville’s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival kicks off its three-night run at Diana Wortham Theatre at 7 p.m. Thursday, musicians and dancers will come from the surrounding towns and regions to joyously take the stage with fiddles, banjos, taps, swirling dresses and unique choreography, putting mountain life on stage with fine lighting, sound, staging and a comfortable seat for the audience, celebrating 88 years of mountain culture.
“I am really excited because we are getting close to the 90th anniversary of the festival,” said Folk Heritage Committee member Kevin Hamlin. “It’s longrange planning all the time. That’s what preservation is.”
Hamlin first danced at the festival in the fourth grade, 42 years ago, and said it’s that feeling that keeps him going, that pride at being part of it.
“I played in the festival in the early ’60s and got to meet Bascom Lunsford, Sam Queen, Virgil Sturgill — some of the old folks,” said Ronnie Rhodes, co-chair for the 2015 event. “People need to know this is a long-standing program. Our young people in North Carolina need to know about the music of our forefathers and, hopefully, carry on the tradition.”
Their cutting-edge music production set the stage for today’s music revival on the streets of Asheville and more.
The first Mountain Dance and Folk Festival was in 1928 in Pack Square as part of Asheville’s Rhododendron Festival. Local attorney and music historian Bascom Lamar Lunsford was enlisted to bring the best of mountain music and dance down from the surrounding mountains to the center of town for the tourists to see. It was quite progressive for the time.
“Wear your best. Come along about sundown,” he’s reported to have said. Dance caller Sam Love Queen and dancer Cecil Pless, of Haywood County, helped connect with dancers while Lunsford organized the musicians.
His grand experiment became the first and now longest-running folk festival in the U.S., with long-reaching influences. Sarah Knott founded the National Folk Festival in 1934 after visiting with Lunsford and attending his festival. Folk icon Pete Seeger bought his first banjo at age 17, on the front lawn of Lunsford’s house in South Turkey Creek after attending the extravaganza.
At the peak of its popularity in the 1950s, more than 15,000 people attended the event at the Civic Center. Lunsford was a mover and shaker in his day, inspiring others and creating opportunities for musicians and dancers to perform where there had been none.
Each night is a showcase of the best of mountain music performers, young and old, bluegrass and mountain string bands, ballad singers, cloggers and big circle mountain smooth dancers, sharing their Scottish, English, Irish, Cherokee and African heritage. Ten minutes before the show starts, Lunsford’s grandson, Ed Herron, takes the stage to greet the audience and then turns the show over to the fiddler of the festival. A lot of it is about having fun.
“The festival starts with the old time ‘Grey Eagle in C,’” said Arvil Freeman, fiddler of the festival for more than 20 years. “Directly after that is buck dancing to ‘Sally Ann,’ a traditional tune we play. Its been done like that ever since I’ve been playing.”
Freeman learned his version of “Grey Eagle in C” from the music of Manco Sneed (1885-1975), an influential fiddler of Cherokee heritage who lived west of Asheville. In earlier years, the fiddlers streamed down the aisles at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium to take the stage for the opening number, calling the dancers to the stage.
Unlike Shindig on the Green, where flexibility rules and entertainment ranges from Nashville stars passing through to local kids taking the stage for the first time, the performers at the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival are invitation only.
Each group usually plays two numbers, or about 10 minutes, ranging from ballads to fast-paced fiddle tunes. Everyone from the organizers to the musicians and dancers donates their time.
“Asheville’s diversity is special, I am proud of being from here,’’ said co-chair Judy Miller, who suspects many fiddle or mandolin players might be created, who had never seen it before. “We are trying to preserve it and make it more popular. For those who haven’t adopted it, they need to. “
“One of the things we’ve started doing is having a hometown night on Thursday night, for local people to come,” Hamlin said. “So many people are from out of town who attend. We will have a smooth dance group every night of the festival for the first time in many years. It was a big part of the festival, and there were competitions with many groups. Smooth dance is more original to the dance form that they began with than clogging, especially the figures, four corners, movement.”
Costumes are a bit different: Smooth dancers wear floor-length dresses, while the clogging teams prefer shorter skirts and crinolines. Acts come and go, each night, in each year, is different.
Committee chair Loretta Freeman likes the gospel music of the Waycasters and looks forward to seeing former Bluegrass Boy Ralph Lewis play with sons Marty and Don Lewis in Sons of Ralph. Each night’s ticket revenues are important; sales help pay for eight Saturday night Shindigs each summer downtown.
There are concerns for the future. Committee member Carol Peterson confirmed that increased costs at Diana Wortham Theater for 2016 will drive up next year’s production costs and add to the amount they must raise to produce the festival and in turn fund the free Shindig on the Green. Filling the seats is critical.
“It’s kindly like my job to go each year,” said veteran fiddler Roger Howell, who says people look forward to seeing certain groups they like. “Mr. Lunsford told me once, ‘Well, play the old tunes, that’s what people want to hear.’ So I do.”
Howell will play Thursday night.
“In Manco Sneed’s day, people sat around their living room and played the tunes,” Arvil Freeman said. “Now, they aren’t learning them so much at home, so we’ll play them for them.”
Carol Rifkin writes about Appalachian culture for the Citizen-Times and is among the dozens of performers for the Mountain Dance & Folk Festival. Email her at CMRifkin@gmail.com.
IF YOU GO
What: 88th Annual Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.
When: 7 p.m. Aug. 6, 7 and 8. Introductions at 6:50 p.m.
Where: Diana Wortham Theatre, 12 Biltmore Ave., Asheville.
Tickets: $22, 12 and younger $12, three nights $54/$24 kids, groups of 10+ $17. Call 257-4530 or visit www.dwtheatre.com or www.folkheritage.org.
FESTIVAL LINEUP
•Thursday: Carol Rifkin and Jerry Sutton MC, Welcome by Ed Herron, “Grey Eagle,” “Sally Ann” (Stoney Creek Boys with buck dancers), Fines Creek Cloggers, Betty Smith, Buncombe Turnpike, Roger Howell and Friends, Sons of Ralph, Don Pedi, Folk Heritage Smooth Dancers, Stoney Creek Cloggers, Carol Rifkin, Jeanette Queen and John Fowler, Peg Twisters, Spirit Fiddle, Green Valley Cloggers, Clearwater Connection, J Creek Cloggers, Whitewater Bluegrass Company.
•Friday: Laura Boosinger and Kevin Hamlin MC, Welcome by Ed Herron, “Grey Eagle,” “Sally Ann” (Stoney Creek Boys with buck dancers), Cole Mountain Cloggers, Richard Hurley, Spirit Fiddle, Appalachian Consort, Joe Penland, Dixie Darlins Cloggers, Denise O’Sullivan, Bobby Hicks, Maggie Lauterer and Zack Allen, Gabriel’s Creek, Appalachian Mountaineers Cloggers, Laura Boosinger, Honey Holler, Blue Ridge Heritage Cloggers, New Broad River Band.
•Saturday: Glenn Bannerman and Richard Hurley MC Welcome by Ed Herron, “Grey Eagle,” “Sally Ann” (Stoney Creek Boys with buck dancers), Mountain Tradition Cloggers, Ross Brothers, Bryce Parham and Kathryn Brickey, Bailey Mountain Smooth Dancers, Phil and Gaye Johnson, Crooked Pine, Bannerman Family and Friends, Southern Mountain Fire Cloggers, The Griggs, Southern Highlanders, Bobby Anderson and Blue Ridge Tradition, Trantham Family, Bailey Mountain Cloggers, Waymasters, Spirit Fiddle, Bearwallow.