FolkeFest: Folkestone Contemporary Folk Festival
FolkeFest: A new contemporary folk festival in Folkestone, Kent, UK. Accessible, multi-cultural, vibrant, dynamic, inclusive.
Folk music was first created by the people for the people, world over - anybody could participate. It arose from working on the land, from cultural beliefs and customs, the changing seasons; a togetherness which embraces roots and expresses shared values. This is the space that our modern folk festival (re)inhabits.
Our public festival acknowledges traditions in folk music but is not be confined by them. Programming includes LGBTQ+ love songs, murder ballads, pagan carols for the 21st Century, rebel songs, songs of struggle, tales of the supernatural and of science, stories of triumph, songs of celebration and queer folk.
The festival aims to revitalise live folk music in the town and promote community connection. We build on folk music’s great pillars of documentary, politics, folklore, song and word of mouth, with a contemporary flavour.
Our golden threads are:
1. Time & A Place - acknowledging traditions in folk music and updating them
2. Queer-ass Folke - queering folk music, taking it out of its current confines, LGBTQ+ Folk
3. Folk Song – shanties, group songs, sharing and learning
4. Word Of Mouth – Folkore, tales, stories, poems
5. Woke Folk – Talks, questions, provocations
6. Folk:Us – visual folk arts, community folk arts
7. EartHeart – celebrating people and nature
