Takoma Park Folk Festival Celebrates 34th Year

It's like the 1954 movie “Brigadoon,” where a Scottish village appears for one day every one hundred years. For one day a year, the Takoma Park Folk Festival appears and takes over the city. Attendees become active participants in the microcosm of clogging, banjos and grassy knolls, and musicians mull over the meaning of “folk music.” The 34th annual festival that popped up Sunday was no different.

“Folk music is 'do-it-yourself,' you just need yourself and someone to listen; you don't need a stage, a radio or a synthesizer,” said Bob Clayton, part of the Neighborhood Singers, who's been playing guitar since his uncle taught him three chords in 1961. Two years later, he'd moved to D.C., gotten a better guitar and was drafted to the Vietnam War. He explains his foray into folk music as a phenomena that came after WWII, part of the 'do-it-yourself' movement that sprouted the magazine Popular Mechanics.

“It all sounded like the music I'd grown up with,” Clayton said. “At times, the only thing that's kept me connected to Washington was the Folklore Society of Washington.”

Clayton sat next to an old acquittance, Mike Stalberg, who was born and raised in Washington, D.C., but now lives in New York and extended his vacation by a day so that he could attend. The two plucked on a banjo and mandolin, the first time they'd ever played together. Stalberg was active in the Hungarian Dance group while he lived here and recalled the transformation of diversity within the folk community.

“In the early days there weren't many nationalities, but once we started playing live music, the ethnic folk dances started popping up,” Clayton said. “They find it and they know it's for me. 

The folk festival, tucked away at the Takoma Park Middle school, takes year-round planning and 150 volunteers to be put together. This year featured a new marketing director, AJ Campbell, who pointed out the for-the-first-time sponsored porta-potties for $50 by a fundraising member. She said next year they would make it a public option, as the committee member got to decorate the porta-potties. And, for the first time this year, they had a flier, a major feat for an operation that has a goal to not turn a profit.

“This event more than any other event, really reflects the diversity of people's interests and who they are. There's so many types of Takoma Park folk and you see them represtend through the people that come and the communty tables,” said Ward 3 Councilwoman Colleen Clay, first-time festival chair. “That's one of the interesting things about festivals is you get an intentional community for the day. It's a safe place to have the festival and the grounds are enclosed. They can have day where they can be themselves and not worry about them. I don't get that same feeling when I go to other festivals.”

Another touch to the event was a team of sign language translators who worked at least two stages each hour, working to translate the language of music for deaf audiences.

“You have to try to match what the performer is doing, but not perform over them,” said Justin Brown, a volunteer translator for the day from Capital Sign Language and First Chair Interpreted Productions. “You can convey the beats and the lyrics; it's not just using your hands, but your whole face and body.”

Stephanie Kaufman, membership chair for the Folklore Society of Greater Washington said she hoped the tradition of folk music and art never stopped.

“There are all kinds of new people that are interested in traditional music, and it evolves once young people come in and interpret it in their own way, but that's the point. To keep it going.”