This little town amid the cornfields wasn't always a hub for world music. It was made that way by three men who wanted to manifest the spirit and folk tradition that embody the crossroads of America. \nThere were three men in the Bloomington music community that met to discuss the creation of such a music festival, which would bring music of every culture to the town, back in 1996. Three and a half months later, the they had assembled 14 acts from around the world representing what they felt were the best and brightest stars in global music. Only one task remained: Naming the festival.\nLee Williams, a former disco-age DJ, became one of the festival's cofounders and is now its director. He described the naming task as twofold. \n"We wanted to have it in some way be representative of south central Indiana music, but we also wanted it to tie in to the outside world," he says.\nHowever, this crucial task was soon completed when one of the members of the naming committee suggested a double entendre of sorts that incorporated an international symbol of peace, with an Indiana folk music legend.\nThey would call it "Lotus Fest."\nNot just a flower
The name "Lotus Fest" was a nod to the late Indiana folk music singer and songwriter Quintin Lotus Dickey. Dickey maintained an old-fashioned mixture of country, gospel and folk music in a progressive world filled with change.\nBorn in Muncie in 1911, Dickey never received formal musical training. Instead, he got his training at home, where there was always singing. In 1922, Dickey began performing informally at county fairs and square dances throughout Indiana and Kentucky.\nBut Dickey's music took a backseat to his duties as a father and provider. He was not "discovered" until the late 1970s by a group of folklorists from IU, who featured him in a documentary called "Water Over Time." From that point on, Dickey gained increasing fame making several recordings and performing at major folk festivals, state parks and schools. He was later named an Indiana State Treasurer, and he enjoyed an active musical career until his death in 1989.\nThough Dickey himself never performed world music, to the festival name search committee, he represented two prime focuses of the festival: open-mindedness and tradition. \n"His musicianship, his humanity was part of the equation of naming it the Lotus Festival," Williams says.\nLotus, the man, was named in reference to the Fifth Teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita, a sacred Hindu text that his father happened to be reading at the time of Dickey's birth. In some eastern cultures, the lotus is associated with both creation theory and divine purity, as mentioned in the following verses from the Fifth Teaching:\n"A man who relinquishes attachment, / and dedicates actions to the infinite spirit / is not stained by evil, / like a lotus blossom unstained by water."\nOnce named, Lotus Fest was ready to make its local debut. But would a small Indiana town be ready to host an event based on global music culture?
Lotus in Bloom
Srinivas Krishnan, an Indian music performer who has been involved with Lotus Fest since it began, remembers the warm reception he received from the Bloomington community when he performed his first show.\n"It was packed," Krishnan says. "It was so much fun... so beautiful, it was!" \nTamir Muskat of Balkan Beat Box, a Mediterranean- and Balkan-influenced group that played at Lotus Fest last year, commends Bloomington for being one of his favorite performance venues.\n"We spent three days (there) and met some great people," he says. "It's really rare to find festivals in the United States. (It's an) intimate fest, about quality, not fads."\nWilliams partially credits the renowned Jacobs School of Music at IU with the success of Lotus Fest in Bloomington, but he also acknowledges the key role the diverse international presence here has played in allowing Lotus to flourish over the years. \n"It's the ideal location for this kind of event," he says.\nSince its founding, Lotus has grown from a small, three-stage performance venue into a full-fledged music festival. In fact, Williams estimates that the festival has hosted artists from close to 100 different countries. Over the years, performers from as far away as Madagascar, Tuva and Tibet have graced the stages of Lotus Fest. This year, the festival will feature 29 musical acts.\nBuilding upon the foundation that Lotus Fest has established, the whole region has become highly involved in the world music scene.\n"Prior to 1994, the Midwest was kind of a black hole of touring artists in terms of world music," Williams says. However, Lotus Fest quickly gained worldwide acclaim.\nIn LuAnne Holladay's 2005 history of Lotus Fest, "Bringing the World to Our Neighborhood: The Lotus World Music and Arts Festival," Irish singer-songwriter Susan McKeown remembers hearing about the festival by word of mouth.\n"I'm in Dingle, County Kerry," she writes in an E-mail. "At my gig here last night a woman called Lee wrote on my E-mail list 'You should play the Lotus Fest in IN.'" \nToday, the Lotus Fest board does not have to seek acts out as they once did. Instead, artists seek Lotus, not only for the performance experience, but for the opportunity to experience Bloomington's welcoming, receptive atmosphere.\n"Bloomington has a capacity to accommodate all these cultures," Krishnan says. "You can see it in the streets with falafel, Thai food and Moroccan food."\nKrishnan also says that he looks forward to roaming the city, seeing the other artists perform and learning about their cultures. \n"We've always had lovely moments together," he reminisces. "Hotel rooms, dinners, events where you can, in biological terms, cross-pollinate."\nGrowing Like a Weed
Although it is unquestionably the original Midwestern world music festival, Lotus Fest is no longer alone in this capacity. Drawing upon Lotus' success, a number of other Midwestern cities, including Chicago and Madison, Wis., have developed their own festivals. There is a good deal of collaboration between cities, as well. Many of these festivals occur in the early fall, enabling for the cities to "share artists," since they are already performing in the region.\nChicago, for instance, has eveloped a big-city cousin of Bloomington's Lotus Fest. In September, the city held its 8th annual World Music Festival, which featured more than 80 events and took place at 29 venues around the city. \n"The World Music Festival not only showcases the talent of musicians from all over the world, it brings together Chicago's own diverse communities in a multi-cultural musical celebration," writes Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lois Weisberg in a press release.\nThe festival has met with such great success, in fact, that it has been expanding. This year, organizers have added an extra day to the event to meet with audience demand. In addition, while music remains at the heart of the event, the city will also hold live radio broadcasts, in-store performances and educational workshops as well.\nIn Madison, a number of cultural- and arts-related groups have provided funding for a smaller scale festival. The Madison World Music Festival, which was just held in late September, provided three days of international music from performers hailing from Tanzania, Scandinavia and Brazil, to name a few.\nIn "A Gringa's Guide to Madison World Music Festival 2006," author Susan Kepecs states the bottom line and overall message of the affair, "People can get along." \nIt appears, though, that this may only be the beginning of a world music explosion in America's heartland. Lotus Fest director Williams says that he and his staff are working to help other Midwestern cities develop similar events. Lansing, Mich., is well on its way to playing host to such a festival, and he hopes that this trend will continue, especially in the area's college towns. \nA concept that started as a passing thought little more than a decade ago seems to have taken on a life of its own. For the people behind Lotus Fest, the trend is something of which to be proud.\nAnd it all started here, with a Lotus.
