Here at Glenville’s WV State Folk Festival – “The Oldest Festival of its Kind in the U.S.” – I can’t help but wonder about the appeal of traditional West Virginia arts, crafts and music to the stereotypical young New Economy type.
Would your typical dot-com startup entrepreneur or research scientist enjoy watching the square dancers, cloggers, or impromptu dulcimer/banjo/fiddle jam sessions that line the streets here in Glenville? Or are we out of luck unless we start offering progressive music festivals?
It would be worth finding out via some real market research. But there may be some clues. First, there were a lot of cars with license plates from DC, NY, Georgia and other states around town. And although the majority of Folkers seemed to be north of my age (40), I did see a lot of interesting young people. We met a young guy who actually had a craft booth who lived in West Chester, PA, (outside Philadelphia) and is planning to move to Gilmer County to grow organic stuff (that’s the technical term, I believe) and seemed really excited about it. While he’s not in that high-tech category, his kind of offerings will most definitely appeal to that extended creative class group.
Second, although I may not be in the cool, young category anymore (I like to think I at least used to be), my family and I were there at the Festival because we enjoy it. Heck, my Pittsburgh-born wife is nagging me to take square dance lessons for crying out loud. Economists would toss us in creative class categories – high tech (me) and author (wife) sectors. Yes, I grew up here and so have a connection to the culture built-in. But I think we as a state under-value the appeal of our unique cultural offerings to the outside – and yes, younger – world.
One response to “Does WV Traditional Culture Appeal to New Economy Creatives?”
If you’d like to see how widespread the interest in traditional (and non-traditional) acoustic music is, you need to pay a visit to the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop the first weekend in August. You’ll see license plates from 49 states (never seen one from Hawaii yet), and musicians regularly visit from Europe and Japan. http://www.wvculture.org/stringband/index.html But more importantly, you see a wide spectrum of ages and professions. There are plenty of professionals from all over the nation that are interested in acoustic music with a traditional bent, just as there are plenty interested in jazz, blues and all the styles that we wish we had more of here in WV. There are folks that plan their summer vacations around hitting the festival circuit. Traditional music is definitely another part of the rural scene in WV that is attractive to others.