High fliers to take a dive for Bangor’s folk festival Pole dancers are one of five newly signed acts

BANGOR – There will be high-flying excitement at this summer’s National Folk Festival. Ninety feet high, to be exact.

The air-diving Papantla Flyers, who will scale a 90-foot pole and dance as part of their traditional ritual, are one of five new acts announced for the event, which takes place Aug. 23-25 along Bangor’s waterfront.

“When this was first mentioned to me I said, ‘I don’t believe it. I’ve gotta see this,'” City Engineer Jim Ring said at a Tuesday afternoon press conference. “The pictures don’t do it justice. It’s even more remarkable.”

Festival organizers also unveiled the official T-shirt logo and posters, designed by Susan Gillette of Belfast, which should start popping up around town in the next two weeks. National Folk Festival Chairman John Rohman also announced new donations, including a $5,000 combined check from Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, that bring the fund-raising total to 85 percent of the first-year goal of $800,000.

“We have extremely broad-based support from a lot of folks,” Rohman said.

The festival, which is free to the public, will cost $1.8 million to run for all three years, with $800,000 of that needed in the first year for startup. To date, organizers have raised about 65 percent of the remaining $1 million needed for years two and three.

“We do need those additional dollars,” Rohman said.

Festival organizers have teamed up with Borders Books Music and Cafe in Bangor for a weekend-long fund-raiser, during which customers can present a coupon and have 15 percent of their purchase price donated to an endowment fund. The endowment has been established in the hopes that Bangor will still have a folk festival after “The National” moves on to another city in 2004. The benefit will take place Friday, July 19, through Sunday, July 21, and coupons will appear in the Bangor Daily News the previous week.

The announcement of five additional performers brings the lineup to 21. Rohman said he expects to add two to four more acts, including some from Maine. The latest round of groups includes the Papantla Flyers, as well as Trio Calchihuecan, Chaksam Pa, Irish duo Liz Carroll and John Doyle, and Viento de Agua.

Trio Calchihuecan plays “jarocho” music, which blends the sounds of harp, guitar, call-and-response singing and improvisational poetry.

The refugees who have come together to form Chaksam Pa keep an endangered Tibetan heritage alive. Their diverse repertoire includes traveling songs, foot-stamping dance songs, folk dramas and classical music.

Fiddler Liz Carroll and guitarist John Doyle are among the most respected traditional Irish musicians in the United States, while Viento de Agua is one of the most popular dance bands in Puerto Rico, serving up hot salsa and traditional “bomba y plena.”

And then there are the Papantla Flyers, whose high-rise performance is traditional in their native Central America, but unlike anything Bangor has seen.

“My prayers will be with them,” Ring said. “But they know what they’re doing.

For information, including sound clips from some of the scheduled performers, visit www.nationalfolkfestival.com, or call 947-5205.