17th Annual Lotus Festival weekend celebrates international music, art

Savoring the sunshine, with sweat beading on their foreheads, the audience gathered around theTree of Life Stage on Saturday at Lotus World Music & Arts Festival’s free event, Lotus in the Park.

Rainbow-striped lawn chairs, plastic cups filled with wine and tattered picnic blankets littered the ground.

Standing in the middle of the stage, Jessica Fichot, singer and songwriter from Paris, held her accordion across her chest. Her body swayed back and forth as she began to sing her music, which incorporates French chanson, the sounds of gypsy jazz, along with Chinese and Latin American folk music.

“I’ve been wanting to play at this festival for years now,” Fichot said to the audience. “This is my first timein Indiana.”

Fichot, who lived in France from age 3 to 20, is an alumna of the School of Audio Engineering in Paris and one of the many artists who filled Bloomington’s streets during this year’s Lotus Festival.

Fichot traveled to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music and currently lives in L.A., where she has resided for the past six years.

“I always knew that I wanted to be a singer or a poet,” Fichot said. “From an early age I knew I wanted to be musical.”

While she started learning music by playing the piano, she said she was never disciplined enough to stick with one particular instrument and throughout the years has dabbled in a variety of musical sounds.

Fichot, who sings in six different languages, said she did not always have the same sense of pride in her multicultural background. Growing up in France, she found herself attracted to the foreign aspect of English. It wasn’t until she moved to L.A. that she realized she wanted to do something more exotic with her musical style.

“Music is a universal language,” Fichot said. “I usually perform for an audience that doesn’t understand what I’m saying. My music is a way to unite them.”

One of the musicians who works with Fichot, Dave Wilson, played the clarinet, flute and saxophone alongside her Saturday. Wilson, a 2002 graduate of the Jacobs School of Music, first met Fichot five years ago when he moved to L.A.

When Wilson heard about the opportunity to perform at the Lotus Festival with Jessica, he knew he had to return to his alma mater.

“I was going to drop everything to make sure that I could come,” Wilson said.

For both Fichot and Wilson, their performances this weekend were an expression of their connection to home and a new sense of community they have created through their music. The warm air lingered as nightfall approached Saturday, waiting for musicians to begin their performances at seven different venues in the downtown area.

George Huntington, who has volunteered with the festival for 15 years, directed volunteers to help with various parts of the stage setup and artist hospitality.
Standing alongside four paid staff members, Huntington said the festival is run entirely on the efforts of hundreds of volunteers.

“In Bloomington, there is a strong sense in the quality of life that is embraced,” Huntington said. “It brings in diversity because people are happy to give their time to something like this.”

Huntington described the festival as controlled chaos with an awful lot of dancing.

“Lotus is part of my core being,” Huntington said. “I eat, sleep and breathe it.”

Crooked Still was this year’s recipient of the Lotus Dickey award, which is an award named after the Indiana native musician for whom the festival is named. Two minutes before they were scheduled to start, the group was still gathered around a table outside of the Lifecycle Tent on Fourth and Grant streets, drinking Upland
Brewery beer and writing out their song list for the evening.

On stage, the emcee introduced Crooked Still as a group often described as “easy to listen to, but difficult to describe.” While they are labeled as new folk, the band likes to consider themselves as alternative bluegrass or chamber grass, with emphasis on the grass.

As their introductions finished, Crooked Still bounded onto the stage and picked up their instruments, beer still in hand. The Boston-based band is composed of five members who play the banjo, fiddle, cello and the double bass. Lead singer Aoife O’Donovan lit up a smile as she began singing the folk sounds that took the audience on a journey through the roots of the heartland.

Cellist Tristan Clarridge seemed mesmerized by the bluegrass rhythms as he closed his eyes and allowed his arm to flow effortlessly across his body, guiding the bow as an upbeat melody streamed from his cello.

Fiddle player Brittany Haas has been playing since she was 4 years old and chose to play barefoot on stage that night in order to feel more comfortable.

Despite a busy schedule of traveling and performances, Haas said she and the rest of the band love playing together.

“Mostly we just feed off the energy of the crowd,” Haas said. “We are so lucky to get to do it all the time. It brings us so much happiness and joy.”

O’Donovan, who studied at the New England Conservatory, grew up in a musical household and said music is 100 percent a part of her being.

“I was taken by the energy and people’s willingness to be right up there next to the stage,” O’Donovan said. “It’s rewarding to see music affecting people note by note.”

For audience member Kim Meyer, eating was no excuse to stop dancing. Meyer, who has been attending the Lotus Festival with her husband for the past eight years, said they keep coming back because of the joy and sense of community that the festival creates.

“Dancing to the music makes my body feel alive, like I’m jumping out from the inside,” Meyer said.

After Crooked Still left the stage, a sea of bodies united in musical rhythm greeted the members of the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars.

The band, composed of men who were forced to flee from their homes in Freetown, Sierra Leone during the country’s decade-long civil war, played passionately to a crowd whose dancing flowed out from the tent and into the surrounding streets.

Alhadji Jeffrey Kamara, known as Black Nature, is the youngest member of the All Stars. He said that music has been a part of their lives for as long as they can remember.

“Music is a spiritual thing,” Kamara said. “It is an exchange of energy that we give out to the crowd, who takes it and then gives it back to us. It makes a beautiful connection.”

As the group exited the stage, the crowd chanted in unison for one more song until the group caved in.

They were dancing and singing to raise awareness about the plight of the refugees and the human rights atrocities occurring within their country. The group said they feel strongly about music as an effective medium for raising awareness.

“Whether you’re old or young, music is the easiest way to pass along a message,” Kamara said.