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The New England Folk Festival is an annual weekend festival of traditional dance and music. It takes place in the Boston, Massachusetts region each spring. It is conducted by the New England Folk Festival Association. Both the festival and the association are colloquially known by the abbreviation NEFFA. NEFFA is a participatory festival; attendees are encouraged to participate in dancing, singing, musical jam sessions, and other activities. It is run by volunteers and all the performers are volunteers as well. The festival and the association has introduced thousands of New England and Massachusetts residents to the varied communities of traditional social and folk dance and folk music for more than 60 years, especially celebrating the living traditions of folk music and dance traditional to New England. Numerous New England folk dance callers, leaders and musicians have had formative experiences at the festival, and in turn have inspired and influenced thousands more through their performances, workshops, and enthusiastic participation. The festival has been influential in sustaining and reviving numerous folk dance traditions in New England. As a social dance festival, it is a community experience, the largest in New England of its kind, with about 5,000 combined admissions in the festival's four session periods. It is the inspiration for other similar traditional dance and music festivals throughout the United States and North America. For contra dance and folk dance leaders from New England and the United States, the festival has been an annual opportunity to perform, share experiences, insights, and further living traditions. The association also conducts a weekly contra dance series in Concord, Massachusetts. The NEFFA festival was founded in 1944, long before several more famous folk festivals, such as the Philadelphia Folk Festival (1962) and the Newport Folk Festival (1959). In recent decades, NEFFA has been influential as a model for dance and music festivals in New England, and nationally, including upstate New York's (Dance Flurry ) (founded 1988) and Maine's (Down East Country Festival ) (founded 1991). == History == The idea for NEFFA came about in the summer of 1944, in a discussion over coffee after a square dance at the Boston YWCA. The participants were Grace Palmer, director of the YWCA; Mary Gillette, head of the YWCA's physical education program; and Ralph Page, the popular New Hampshire caller who presided at the square dances. The series had been running for little more than a year, but was already drawing over two hundred people every week, most of them college students. As Ralph Page later recalled the conversation, they were discussing a recent attempt at a "New England Folk Festival" at the Boston Garden which had left them unimpressed: "Mary said: 'Why don't we have a real folk festival?' and so the idea was born". Mary Gillette envisioned a festival where New England's many ethnic groups could share their song, dances, and crafts and present them to a wider audience, in a simple, honest, straightforward manner.〔(NEFFA History ) ''New England Folk Festival Association''; Tony Parkes, editor. (Edited from writings of Ralph Page and Louise Winston, from the journal ''Northern Junket,'' Published by Ralph Page, and available online at the University of New Hampshire, Special Collections Library: New Hampshire Library of Traditional Music & Dance. Also edited from annually published program books and a 10th Anniversary publication)〕 Grace Palmer offered the facilities of the Boston YWCA. Philip Sharples, who in 1940 had founded the Belmont Country Dance Group (one of the first square and contra dance series in the Boston area), joined with Mary Gillette and Ralph Page in calling local leaders to meet and talk it over. Many recreation agencies and ethnic groups sent representatives. From the start, the Festival Committee agreed to maintain an atmosphere of non-commercialism and high standards of performance and authenticity. The first festival took place on 28–29 October 1944 and attracted 200 attendees, mainly to watch performances of local ethnic dance performing groups.〔 The festival continued at the Boston YWCA five more times. From 1951 onward, it was held in a variety of town and cities near Boston, visiting Worcester several times, and once each in Exeter, New Hampshire, Manchester, New Hampshire, North Kingston, Rhode Island, Brockton, Massachusetts and Lowell, Massachusetts. It was held in Natick High School for the four years ending in 1970, then returned to Natick in 1974 where it was held annually through 2006. In 2007 the festival was held for the first time in Mansfield High and Middle Schools. Over the course of 60-plus years, the festival has grown to a three-day affair, with about 5,000 admissions.〔Whitehead, Donna; and Cathy Gilbertie Knipper. (Folk festival could return ) ''Mansfield News,'' Apr 26, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2008.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「New England Folk Festival」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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