The Center for Cultural Vibrancy is sponsoring the Virginia Folklife Area at the 2021 Richmond Folk Festival, in partnership with Venture Richmond and the National Council for the Traditional Arts. CCV Director Jon Lohman has personally curated the area since its year as part of the National Folk Festival in 2005.
A full weekend of music from around Virginia is scheduled on the Virginia Folklife Stage. Here are links to the artists performing on that stage, as well as the full schedule of music at the festival.
CCV is proud to work with artists such as Ganna Natsag, whose work will be on display at the Richmond Folk Festival October 8-11. The article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch linked below summarizes how he captures sacred traditions through his art.
Since it first arrived in Richmond as the National Folk Festival in 2005, the Richmond Folk Festival has delighted audiences with a dizzying array of musical traditions from across the nation and the globe. It has also showcased the best of the diverse range of traditional arts from across the Commonwealth through the theme-driven Virginia Folklife Area, combining Virginia’s richly diverse musical traditions with material culture and traditional crafts. In years past, the Virginia Folklife Area has explored such themes as sacred traditions, instrument building, contest traditions, youth and family folklife and many more, bringing together master artisans from the coalfields to the Chesapeake, and from the DC Metro to Danville. This year the Virginia Folklife Area returns with “MASK,” featuring the astonishing Mongolian masks and ceremonial costumes and dance of Arlington, Virginia, resident Gankhuyag “Ganna” Natsag.
