Often times when people are looking real estate for sale in the Asheville, North Carolina events that the area has to offer. Asheville and Western North Carolina do have a tremendous variety of gatherings, festivals, and events occurring throughout the spring, summer and fall. One of the most popular spring gatherings is the LEAF Festival. . It is a three day events that offers an incredible variety of musical performers, many local talented artists and healers, and wonderful culinary delights all taking place in a gorgeous mountain lake setting,. LEAF is also extremely child and family friendly with one of its major goals being the enhancement of the arts in local schools and community centers. My wife and I had the opportunity to attend LEAF this year and were not disappointed.
LEAF( from their website) is a non-profit organization established to enhance people's lives through creative expressions, the arts, dance and music from a variety of cultures. They seek to cultivate a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural traditions and the arts in Western North Carolina and beyond. They promote heritage preservation, multi-cultural education, community outreach, and connecting children and families to the arts.
One of the unique things about LEAF is their focus on educating and involving youth in the arts. They have their own Kids Village and Artspace Creativity Zone where a wide variety of activities for both young and older youth occur onstop for three straight days. Many of the musicians playing at LEAF also have at least one concert at the Kids Village and many also do workshops with the youth in attendance, There are also poetry slams, puppetry workshops, break dancing, and a Kids arts and Crafts section where items that youth have made on put on sale. See picture.
As for our day, we arrived at about 10am (parking and shuttle only $1) and after walking around looking at the various artists wares and sampling some of the wonderful cuisine at the Sugar Shack( the Veggie Thing was unbelievable. Contact we for ingredients). There was a wide variety of food vendors and keeping with Asheville tradition, many offering delicious vegetarian offerings.
After eating it was on to some African Drum Dancing and River Art Creations. How do they do that?
The musical portion of the day and eveneing wer now upon us and we began the journey listening to wonderful Russian Folk Singer, Jamuna ( the one with the orange hair).
Sundance Power Systems sponsored this tent stage and a really cool looking tent venue.
Next up was a group called the Carolina Chocolate Drops an African American String Band. We bought CD's from both performers and you can listen to samples of the music on their websites. About 2:30pm with rain lurking we headed back home for a little R&R and arrived back for evening festivities around 5:30pm. First up was the DUHKS ( pronounced Ducks) who were nominated for a Grammy last year. Yep, bought another CD. We then moved from stage to stage throughout the night listening to three more wonderful bands, Rising Appalachia, The Be Good Tanyas and Sol Driven Train . We ended the night at about 11:30pm sitting outside a little jam tent listening to local banjo and fiddle players jamming nonstop.
I was going to try and sum up our entire experience at LEAF but then I saw these quotes and thought they said it all.....
"The best multicultural mix and match festival. Mountain music meets world music, blues, zydeco, and more." - Washington Post
"an exquisite torture of having to choose between four different types of music and dance in any given hour. If one tires of music and dancing there are workshops on yoga, fiddling, waltzing, drumming, Latin dance, building green homes, massage, sonic healing, herbal medicine, poetry ‘slams' and a hundred other life affirming activities. Each night a massive drum circle echoes from the hills. The whole festival is wrapped around a beautiful series of cascading swimming, boating and fishing ponds-yes indeed, Lake Eden."
- Blair Pollock
LEAF puts on two festivals a year in Spring( new leaves) and Fall( old leaves). Dates for the next LEAF are October 19th - 21st which just happens to correspond to beautiful fall mountain LEAF foliage. LEAF is just one example of the rich cultural and musical offerings that area has to offer and is one of many reasons why people are drawn to buy real estate in Asheville either for a second home or to live year round. Hope to see you this fall at LEAF!
Check out more pictures of LEAF at localism.
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