The 34th annual Folkmoot Festival in Waynesville kicks off Thursday, July 20 and will again feature close to 300 performers from 10 countries eager to introduce Americans to their native clothing, culture, dance and music during almost 30 appearances across Haywood County and the surrounding region through July 30.

Peru: We travel to different countries. It’s our fifth festival this year, already two in France. We like a lot of the people, so friendly. The people is really friendly, the place is really beautiful. We think you have a different city not like other festivals and different in this part of the country, and we love it so much.

After talking with staff, volunteers and last year’s groups, Folkmoot Executive Director Angie Schwab decided that this year, she wanted to give performers more of a chance to experience contemporary American culture.

In May, the auditorium in the Folkmoot Friendship Center was dedicated to a man instrumental in establishing Waynesville and its environs as one of the most important centers of folk culture in the nation.

Just prior to the 2016 Folkmoot Wanderlust Gala, Folkmoot staff, sound technicians, photographers and performers scurried about behind the stage.

Rolf Kaufman has been a fixture on the Folkmoot scene since before it even began, bringing people from foreign lands together and welcoming them to Western North Carolina much as he himself was welcomed here from a foreign land 70 years ago.

Everyone in Western North Carolina knows that once the Smokies shed their winterwear and the trees begin to bud, summer’s coming. They also know that when the dog days hit, the most refreshing thing going is Folkmoot USA’s International Folk Festival.

Each year international groups from all over the world travel abroad to share their traditional folk dances and songs with other cultures. 

They spend hundreds of hours researching, learning and rehearsing these songs and dances. They spend a lot of money on authentic costumes to accurately represent their heritage and they spend even more to go one tour and share their work with others.

When Shirley Finger was younger, she never did too much clogging. Or dancing of any kind, really.

“Back when I was growing up you didn’t go to a dance, that was the Devil’s place,” recalled Finger. “But when I got married my husband was on a dance team and I just fell in love with it.”

Finger fell in love with clogging. She has since enjoyed spreading the gospel of clogging with the Waynesville-based Dixie Darlin’s.

For two weeks every July, the old Hazelwood School in Waynesville becomes a mini United Nations. 

Performance groups from around the globe descend on Haywood County and Western North Carolina. They’re dancers, singers and musicians, each proudly representing their faraway native land and culture. And with every group comes a language barrier. Though there are obviously difficulties in not being able to understand someone else, the beauty of sharing cultures comes in finding common ground with that person.