DaveWells.us

A Samba Dancer from The
Lions of Batucada

This year’s folk­life fes­ti­val went quite smoothly for those of us involved in pro­duc­tion. The crew was great, vet­er­ans and Folk­life rook­ies alike. In my par­tic­u­lar area, sig­nage, I had two very capa­ble assis­tants — Matthew and Tim. Matthew is the son of one of my mom’s long-time friends, and he and I haven’t seen each other for about six­teen years. It was nice to see him again and do a lit­tle catch­ing up. But, I digress. The nature of sig­nage is such that you rush around before the fes­ti­val putting signs and ban­ners up, but every­thing gen­er­ally calms down by the sec­ond morn­ing of the actual run. Matthew was only with us for a cou­ple of days before the fes­ti­val, but Tim was there through the whole run. As a result, Tim and I had alot of free time to go out and enjoy the fes­ti­val. With two good guys help­ing out and four fes­ti­vals already under my belt, this year was quite stress-free. From what I heard from other areas (pro­gram­ming, spon­sor­ship, etc.), it seems as though every­one had a pretty smooth run.

March Fourth Hula
Hooper

Despite the rel­a­tively low-key nature of this year’s fes­ti­val, it still wore me out. I was there usu­ally between seven and eight in the morn­ing, and never left before six, although some nights I was there con­sid­er­ably later. On Mon­day, Tues­day, and Wednes­day nights we par­tied too, first cel­e­brat­ing the end of the fes­ti­val proper, then var­i­ous stages of the take-down process. On Wednes­day night (the biggest cel­e­bra­tion), some of my co-workers started pes­ter­ing me to come back out to work at Bum­ber­shoot, an arts fes­ti­val that takes place over Labor Day week­end. I guess I won’t be in school yet then, but it’ll sort of depend on the pay and what I’m up to in Madison.

The Masses on Saturday

With all the free time I had, I was able to snap quite a few pic­tures. I’ve posted a num­ber of dig­i­tal shots, but I have a few rolls of film to develop and scan, as well. At the moment, my gallery con­sists largely of pics from two groups — March Fourth, a punk march­ing band with stilt-walkers and a hula-hooping anti-cheerleader, and The Lions of Batu­cada, a samba bate­ria from Port­land. There are also a few other pics show­ing var­i­ous other things, includ­ing the crowds, a herd of hurdy-gurdies, and some of the more provoca­tive pro­pa­ganda being car­ried around the fes­ti­val grounds. Any of the thumb­nails above will take you to the gallery.