Folkmoot 2007 - International Day

We woke to a steady downpour. Weather reported 70% chance of rain all day in Waynesville. To go or not? It’s only an hour drive so we took off in the rain. We drove all the way in rain and parked in the rain and then walked to Main Street in the rain under a dark, heavy sky.

But performers were gathering across from the courthouse. These were the South Korean women we had seen a couple of nights before at HCC. Now their kimonos were splattered with raindrops. Stage hands finished pushing parts of the impromptu stage together. Wire connectors were snapped tight, and drums were set upon the stage. Two young ladies appeared with strange looking horns and seated themselves oblivious of the drizzle. Dancers arranged themselves in the wet street as the audience assembled around them in the rain. A gong sounded “WOONNNGGG!”. Everyone stood still and looked at the dancers as the air trembled. “WOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGG!”” Then the strange horns blared stridently as if issuing a command to some unseen being. The three dancers who were arranged in front of the stage each slowly raised two polished mohagany sticks with brass rings on the end, they then spun full circle and brought those sticks together in a loud “whack!” and the sun came out and they began dancing. There was no more rain all the rest of day and the music never stopped.

We bought grand-kid presents for birthdays and Christmas. Even got one or two for their parents. The gift possibilities ranged from trinkets to much more expensive works of art and included quilts, bedspteads, furniture and even fly-fishing gear. I filmed video of the sights and sounds of the street carnival, recording the songs, music, the patter and hubbub.

Hawaii carried this hot day’s best performance like a cool sea breeze. A bit of a hula dance was followed by “Hula Instruction Camp”, wherein two young ladies instructed a line of young participants (all under 10 probably) how to do the hula. They were shown how to depict the waving palm trees, the arrival of the waves on shore, and the famous hip swing (“pretend you are inside a dirty barrel and you are going to clean it out with just your hips.”)

Then the Hoop Dancer came out and cleaned out everything else. This guy was here last year and has just gotten better. He puts on a magnificent show and then he goes way beyond that. THEN, as he is dancing with probably 20 or so hoops, another 20 or 30 appear and he works them into the routine. When he is finished everyone in the crowd is too. That’s when we noticed how hot it was.

We ate lunch at Nick’s and Nate’s. We both had pizza brunch which included 4 or 5 of their slices and I also had a little bit of barbecue, a spare rib, some beans and slaw. Then another pizza slice made a fine dessert. We also had Alley Cat Ale and the Great White Lager. There was plenty of other food available too. Funnel cake, corn dogs, Polish sausages, barbecue, curley-cut crinkle fries, drippy-juicy sugar-things. Asian food, Greek food, Italian food, native-American food was everywhere, all anyone could ever want in hyper-caloric trans-fat destructive happy food..

So the afternoon was a kaleidoscope of dances and presents. The turnout of people who visited and participatged was high. One of the finest aspects of the International Day is the opportunity to mingle with those who have come from other countries and talk with them. Most of them know English and can speak it from a range of poorly to better than I can. Finally we gathered our presents, found our car and went home. Lots of good presents, memories, pictures and video tape went along with us.

Folkmoot 2007 at Haywood Comm Coll

The word “Folkmoot” means a meeting of the folks, or a meeting of the people and it come from the English (British) language. A doctor from Waynesville was fascinated with Folkmoot performances he saw while on trips to Europe and after several years was able to create a Foolkmoot in his own home town.

This is the 24th year of the Waynesville Folkmoot, and the 15th that JoAnn and I have attended. We always try to see International Day, the last Saturday, held in the main street of Waynesville and usually catch one of the other 20+ performances in various cities in the WNC area.

This year we went to the Haywood Community College (HCC) venue in Waynesville. It turned out to be the best we have seen. The secret to parking there is to find the parking lot behind the auditorium, enter the second floor of the building, walk down a flight of stairs and you are at the doors to the theater. Seats are good and they have reserved seats.

The first show was from Hawaii. It was a “Firedance” and was so stunning I felt it should have saved for the climax of the performance. Turned out there were better shows to come. In the movie I plan to make of Folkmoot 2007, I will probably put the Hawaii performance last though because it will make a better transition to the second part of the movie which will be about International Day.

The best performance - by far - was the South Korean ladies in their long flowing robes and their dance that evolked the feeling of underwater life, I could feel the fish, seaweed and other underwater beings and inhabitants as they swayed and we were all mesmerized and quickly the entire audience began swaying and became part of their graceful rhythm. A different group of ladies from South Korea then sang and danced their “Dance of Joy”. They were as good as the first group but should have come first.

The performance I liked best of all though was by some gals from Peru along with guys dressed like sailors who wore great false faces. The dance was a wild combination of unbounded joy and outlandish frivolity. The women were clearly flirting - with somebody (me, probably) - and the sailors were all wooden faced middle-management type bozos and the two groups danced two very different dances but to the same tune and it all fit together in some kind of a happy, fun-filled fling of abandon. Must have been like “singing a round” except these guys were “dancing a round”.

The Russians were back again and they are always a great hit with the audience. They have attended more Waynesville Folkmoots than any other country except Mexico. This year's performance at HCC included a totally amazing rendition of the famous Cossak dancers which actually take your breath away.

All of these pictures were made with my camcorder while seated in the auditorium and some of them will enlarge if clicked upon.

Visit to Lenoir, NC

Lenoir seems like an ideal place to live. It looks like the home of the American Dream. This is the town we all planned to return to and build a dream house someday, complete with picket fence and ramblin’ rose. Unfortunately that dream did not comprehend how a carnivorous capitalism would eventually send this city’s furniture industries and their jobs overseas to China, leaving Lenoir more suitable for a role in an Edgar Allen Poem.


Downtown Lenoir apparently fell into a web of abandoned stores on Main Street. All that remained of its proud history was the 22 year tradition of downtown sculptures. Each year a new piece of outdoor three dimensional art is added after a contest which includes contestants even from overseas. Early this year an additional new 3-D sculpture was landed for Lenoir – is it named “Google”. A distribution plant will be built on a 22 acre site downtown to provide as yet unknown work for the Google Corporation. Other large corporations are rumored to be headed in too. Downtown Lenoir is now rebuilding dramatically and becoming a beautiful city.


A new tradition has begun with live music downtown on Friday evenings. A pavilion has been added to a new open lot with greenery and substantial stage and acoustical equipment. Too bad the audience has to look at the performers by squinting into the afternoon sunlight. Maybe that’s only a problem in May, June, July and August. But it is a beginning. Now they need another place or two a block or two away. Meanwhile the curious happily come to sit beside other sculptures and watch the show, and smile and clap and tap a toe or two



Downtown there are watering holes. None more welcome than the one seen in the picture below. Look down in its lower left corner and see a bright silver pan filled with water. Venti’s Bookstore owner puts a fresh bowl of water out a time or two each day for the hard working doggies of downtown Lenoir. The guy in the red shirt is leading (being led by) a snazzy poodle (behind the sign) who is charging down on his hard-earned drink.

Away from downtown there is a place called Hannah’s. New York Times apparently wrote it up as a great place to eat southern barbeque and Brunswick Stew.
I tried the pork plate with french fries and some of the stew. It was OK. A sign in front of Hannah's carried a message saying "If God brings you to it, He will lead you through it", I didn't know if it referred to God in general or life and its problems or to Hannah's barbecue. I couldn’t figure it out. But then, just a little farther down the road, on the edge of a great mall called Lenoir Crossing, there were a lot of signs from God or somebody.

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Back downtown there is an old abandoned, boarded-up movie theater. Its marquee reads “Come home solders make us proud!” I had to look up “solder” and found it is pronounced “SOD-er”, and defined as any of various fusible alloys, usually tin and lead, used to join metallic parts.” Well, the puzzle grew. Maybe they were referring to the outdoor art that graces the downtown. I asked someone and they told me I had misread the sign. It actually read “soldiers”,not “solders”. But even then the mystery grew. Why put such a sign on what had once been a main part of town perhaps, but had obviously been long ago shut down and boarded up. What soldiers were they supposed to be referring to, and what war? Vietnam perhaps? I looked again at the theater, and figured it must have been Korea. Of course when you are part of an imperial empire you will get it fight in many wars, all of them with small countries, and so the possibilities grew. Perhaps it could have been Granada, or Laos, or El Salvador, or Cambodia, or Haiti, or Guatemala, or Columbia, or Somalia, or Lebanon. Probably not Yemen or Afghanistan or Iraq, because this theater of war had clearly been shut down long before that. Could it have been WWII? Or I? Or. . . . Well, there was another monument downtown that finally supplied the mental solder necessary to make this connection: Indeed, gray matters.





The Caldwell County Library showed it was open to all. Even to a flag-draped coffin, of sorts, which was found positioned inside. Its occupant seemed to be trying to focus into a computer screen. His companion lay outside the front door asleep with a pit bull chained to his tattered dungarees. Didn’t know if I should salute or not, so I went back downtown.




Here I found a tiger stalking through Hogwaller Outfitters, apparently ready to head down the canyons of Lenoir. Perhaps he was lying-in-wait for thirsty doggies. Hogwaller outfits Boy Scouts and serious campers and hikers with all the most famous brand names of equipment in stock





Next to Hogwaller is Venti's Bookstore. This is where we can find the answers to our questions, here in this window into reality. What does the future hold for Lenoir? Of course the future is always full of tricks, and a one-day visit to anywhere is often misleading, but this city shows solid craftsmanship everywhere you look. You come away with the feeling that here is a strong city that is well laid-out and located fortuitously. Its foundations seem strong, and its inhabitants are used to creating well-built useful objects that reflect the eternal presence of art. I sense that whatever comes to Lenoir will be interesting to watch.

© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.