WOW! This year's FSGW annual one-day indoor folk festival, held on February 2, 2008 at the Takoma Park Middle School, 7611 Piney Branch Road, was the best ever! We had a "critical mass" of contradancers all day in the Main Gym, with fabulous music and lots of "shadow" dances. Many classroom performances were "standing room only."
* Special Thanks to the programmers: Charlie Baum for the Cafetorium and Jam Room (aka Auxiliary Gym, Linda Goodman for the vocal track and the "blues & complaints" track, Bill Mayhew for storytelling, Jamie Platt for the wonderful all-Balkan evening entertainment, Charlie Pilzer for the contra bands all day long in the Gym, Becky Ross for the all-day fiddle workshops, and Janine Smith and Matt Levine for the Roots Americana/bluegrass track
As soon as I can figure out how what I need to tweak, I'll post a link to some wonderful pictures taken during the day by local photographer (and contradancer) Steve Tuttle.
Special Thanks to Dennis Cook and Jamie Platt, who trucked in vast amounts of sound equipment, set it all up, and did many sound checks "on the fly" after uproarious invasions of performance space by bands of wandering Morris dancers.
The Instrument Petting Zoo was busy all day long. Todd Crowley brought every sort of stringed instrument from autoharps to zithers, and not only permitted but actually encouraged everyone, regardless of age, to touch, hold, pluck, strum, or bow. People floated out of the Doo-Wop Workshop led by Flawn Williams on a cloud of "sha-booms", and every time I walked down the corridors, I heard music coming from stairwells and sidehalls.
Special Thanks to the "Group 1" volunteers (who came early, set up all the classrooms, put everything back where it belonged at 6, and stayed to load out at 10;30 that night) and to Neil Zimmerman and all of the "Group 2" volunteers, who staffed the check-in areas and more all day long.
Did you lose anything? I have a box of Lost and Found items. Please email me at MiniFestMessages (at) aol.com if you purchased a bag of metal finger picks from IMT which you now can't find.
Interested in helping/performing/planning for next year? Probably February 7, 2009. Email me at MiniFestMessages (at) aol.com.
April Blum, Mini-Fest Chair
