What we can expect from this year's NJ Folk Festival

Many of us have been distanced from New Brunswick during the pandemic, missing out on the valuable cultures that flourish within it. A way to rediscover and reconnect with the exciting communities that inhabit the city is by engaging with an event like the New Jersey Folk Festival (NJFF).

In the springtime, New Brunswick and the Rutgers campus fully come alive on Rutgers Day. The bustling NJFF is a Rutgers Day highlight, as it's one of the largest student-run, non-profit folk festivals in the U.S.

Usually, the event takes place near Wood Lawn Mansion, now the home of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, on Douglass campus. Established in 1975 by Professor Angus Gillepsie, NJFF is organized by the Department of American Studies, an undergraduate student committee passionate about showcasing New Jersey’s long-standing cultural traditions, heritage and folklore.

In 2019, I got to volunteer at the NJFF and was blown away by people from all over the state flocking to New Brunswick, buying from the many local food and craft vendors exhibiting and watching the talented live entertainment lineup. That being said, current public health precautions have made it difficult and unsafe for in-person programming and large-scale gatherings.

The pandemic presented the team behind NJFF with a unique opportunity to adapt to online circumstances and innovate how they celebrate the many cultures residing in New Jersey. I spoke to three members of NJFF’s administration team to talk more about the 2021 Virtual Folk Fest and this year's theme, Oaxaca.

Lalitha Vallabhaneni, a Rutgers Business School senior and the festival’s finance and sponsorship intern, is looking forward to welcoming audiences from all over the state to the many virtual events planned throughout April.

“The New Jersey Folk Festival is an annual event that highlights cultures within New Jersey and has a specific emphasis on indigenous cultures, as well, and seeks to foster public awareness and education about these individual cultures,” Vallabhaneni said.

Gillian Dauer, a School of Arts and Sciences junior and the alumni and volunteers intern, explained why Rutgers students should be excited for what NJFF offers, especially considering this year’s theme.

The festival is dedicated to celebrating indigenous cultures, like the Oaxacans, she said. After a big influx of immigrants to the New Brunswick area in the 1980s, the Oaxacans have flourished into a vibrant community.

Dauer said there are now Oaxacan family-owned bakeries and restaurants, among other things. NJFF is also partnered with Lazos America Unida, a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of the Mexican American community, as well as strengthening the relationship between the Hispanic community and the surrounding area.

“When you go to Rutgers, you don't often think about who lives in New Brunswick, like New Brunswick's not just Rutgers, right? There are people, there are kids going to school there, there are family-owned businesses. My hope is that the students who attend — and the rest of New Jersey … get a greater appreciation and interest in learning about those communities and appreciation for what they offer to this area and just an appreciation for the beauty that is the Oaxacan community,” Dauer said.

Kathleen Roughgarden, a School of Arts and Science sophomore and NJFF’s Media Intern, discussed how the festival engaged with community members, even as the likelihood of an in-person festival diminished, given the pandemic.

She said they decided to transform their website prior to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic due to a transition of power from Gillepsie to Dr. Maria Kennedy.

"When (COVID-19) hit, we realized, we're not gonna have an in-person festival … That's when we made our first Virtual Folk Festival. It's still available on the website … It had craft demonstrations, it had performances and interviews," Roughgarden said. "Once this school year hit, we realized we're going to be doing another virtual folk festival. We really amped up our online presence. And we've been working on posting (on) all of our social media platforms, being very up-to-date with the website. We have registration links for all of our live events."

In addition to spotlighting craft vendors and local eateries as well as holding panel discussions and virtual concerts, the team also decided to work on a podcast, titled “New Jersey Folk.”

The nine-episode podcast will be released in May, with preview snippets of the first two episodes featuring Turkish artist Ylvia Asal and Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives archivist Erika Gorder released on Instagram.

“We had this idea to take an aspect of our festival, which used to be live (interviews) of people … Everyone's listening to podcasts now … especially during (COVID-19). How do we take those interactions and put them in a digital format so that they last forever, and we have records of them, and also so that we can continue to have those conversations?" Vallabhaneni said.

She said the podcast was also yet another way for them to connect with artists, both within and outside their annual theme. Every undergraduate student on their team is producing their own podcast in which they can spotlight an artist or speaker specifically from the Oaxacan community.

If you’re a Rutgers student looking for ways to branch out and connect with the New Brunswick community, I highly recommend checking out the virtual NJFF on April 24th. For more information, you check out their website here.