Thanks, folks!
For 11 days in January, thousands participated in the 26th Annual Anchorage Folk Festival; a celebration of the rich folk heritage of live music, singing, dancing, and storytelling that abounds in our community, brightening the coldest and darkest time of year. Based on the passion and hard work of the festival's all-volunteer board of directors and hundreds of other volunteers, over 120 performances took place on the main stage at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium and many more at venues throughout the city.
There were also over 45 acoustic music, singing, and dance workshops on the weekends -- all offered by volunteers with no admission charged. Add the free evening concerts to packed houses featuring nationally known guest artists The California Honeydrops, Foghorn Stringband, and Cajun Country Revival, plus a succession of sold-out dances featuring those guest artists, and you get an expanding network of appreciation for live performance.
The mission of the Anchorage Folk Festival, like the Alaska Folk Festival in Juneau and other folk festivals throughout the country, is to gather people together to experience and celebrate the essential folk tradition of live music played by families, friends, and folks of all generations. For 26 years the Anchorage Folk Festival has been coaxing folks out of their music lessons, living rooms and local haunts to perform and jam at the festival, giving our entire community the chance to see, hear, play along, learn from, dance, and enjoy. It's a living tradition and it's working. What started in 1990 as a single weekend of local performers has evolved into an 11-day extravaganza of nonstop folksy fun, with no end in sight.
Traditionally, the festival is held over the final two weekends in January. Since we're all about tradition, you can safely calendar next year's festival right now, for Jan. 21 to Jan. 31, 2016.
If you are interested in learning more about the Anchorage Folk Festival, please visit our website: www.anchoragefolkfestival.org. You can find information there about our board's meeting times and locations, becoming a member, volunteer opportunities, commercial sponsorships, and more. Please think of us when you Pick.Click.Give. You can also email us at folks@anchoragefolkfestival.org. We are already planning for next year, when we hope that even more Alaskans will come out to listen, dance, sing, and play to shake off the winter blues!
Kenny Powers, president of the Anchorage Folk Festival board, is a dancer and dance instructor, traditional square and contra dance caller and has clogged on stage at jams and as workshop instructor at the Anchorage Folk Festival, always to live music, he says. He also is one of the founders of the Dancing Bears, a local dance organization dedicated to promoting traditional music and dance in Alaska.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com