For those who wish to delve into the culture of the West this month, you have to first head east to Park City, where the best of the West's art, music and humanities will be performing and on display at the Westbound Festival.
The Westbound Festival Series 2001 is presented by the Summit Institute for Arts and Humanities. Although the festival bears the same name and theme as last year's inaugural festival — celebrating the culture of the American West — there are quite a few changes this year. The venue has changed, and it runs over the course of two weekends, bumping up the dates to July 14-15 at The Canyons Resort and July 21-22 at the Park City Mountain Resort.
Splitting the festival into two weekends has opened up the opportunity for two different themes. On the first weekend, the theme will be "Human and Natural Resources of the West," while the second weekend focuses on "Celebrating the Contributions of Western Women."
The two weekends will bring together arts and humanities with outdoor music, Western authors, cowboy and cowgirl poets, visual artists, speakers in the humanities and art exhibits.
Linda Bonar, executive director of the festival, said her favorite part is the opportunity to weave fine arts with humanities. "To understand art, you have to put it in its context," Bonar said, "that's where the humanities come in. It adds another dimension."
By including all of the various aspects of the art and humanities of the West, the festival offers "more depth that what you'd normally find at an outdoor festival," Bonar said.
One cowgirl poet, JoLynne Kirkwood, an English teacher from Sevier County who grew up on a ranch, is especially excited to get to perform during the Western Women weekend. "The theme is 'Women of the West,' and I've got quite a few poems along those lines. They're about what it would have been like to be a woman at that time," Kirkwood said. "I'm excited to do them all together. . . . I haven't had the chance to do that before."
Kirkwood points out that cowboy poetry is both fun and an important part of the West's heritage. "Throughout any culture, there's a traditional way to pass stories. On this side of the Mississippi, the cowboy life is a part of a lot of our lives, heritage and traditions. Storytelling is an important oral tradition, because there's a message, a story to be told."
The outdoor-music portion of the festival is headlined by renowned banjo-picker Tony Furtado July 14 and Mexican-American folk/pop singer Tish Hinojosa July 21.
Furtado is a regular at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but he said during a phone interview from his home in Boulder, Colo., that lately he has been taking his music in new directions. "Bluegrass is generally played by an upright bass, mandolin, banjo, acoustic guitar and fiddle. I'm using drums and electric guitars now, so that throws it into a different realm."
Beyond the different instruments in his band, Furtado said the music he does has a whole different feel. "Bluegrass was influenced by Appalachian folk music and working man's music. What I've done is regressed back to what influenced bluegrass and come up with something on my own. It's like a cross between Scottish/Irish music and country blues."
The festival will showcase a number of art exhibits, including "The Sagebrush Ocean: A Naturalist's Vision of the Great Basin" done by Stephen Trimble, a Utah photographer who has gained international recognition. "He's trained as a photographer and a naturalist," Bonar said, "so the work is done from a naturalist point of view."
Another of the main exhibits is "The Rock in Rock Art: The Barrier Reef Canyon Project," which contains photos of around 250 prehistoric rock art sites done in the Barrier Canyon style, some of the earliest known rock art panels in the American West.
In keeping with the spirit of adding to the festival, Bonar said the festival will be offering a variety of activities at the new Children's Art Corral. "We did an audience survey last year and found that 52 percent of our visitors brought their kids," Bonar said.
The children's activities promise to be fun, educational and hands-on, Bonar said. Some of the Art Corral activities include pioneer games, getting to see birds of prey, learning traditional American Indian and Hispanic dances and making a giant puzzle.
Another new program for the festival this year is the Adopt a Native Elder program, which allows people to purchase rugs made by native elders from the Four Corners region, with all proceeds going toward a program that supplies food, medicine, clothing and fabric to the elders, who live in the cultural and spiritual traditions of their people.
The change to two weekends instead of just one for the festival stems from the Summit Institute's desire to ultimately ease into a nine-day event, Bonar said. "We're taking baby steps, although it feels like giant steps doing two weekends now."
Bonar said that the dates of the festival were moved up to July, earlier than last year's Labor Day, because of all the competition from the sidewalk sales. Also changing are the hours the festival will be open, running this year from 4-9 p.m. on the days of the festival.
The Westbound Festival Series 2001 is July 14—15 at The Canyons Resort and July 21-22 at Park City Mountain Resort. Festivities will go from 4—9 p.m. Adult tickets are $9, children $5; children ages 5 and under are free; students and seniors $7; weekend passes $15; festival long passes $25; and family passes (2 adults, 3 children) $25. For more information call 435-649-2315.
E-mail: pthunell@desnews.com