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Mariposa Folk FestivalThe Mariposa Folk Festival was founded in Orillia, Ontario, and after being held in various places in Ontario for a few decades, has returned there. The festival's goal is to study, promote and celebrate folk music, especially that performed by Canadians. From its conception, the festival was plagued with problems: persistent rowdiness, a lack of a permanent venue, changes in focus, schisms and artistic differences. Nevertheless, despite these handicaps, Mariposa has provided an opportunity for established and especially new groups and soloists of a folk, country, Aboriginal, blues, zydeco or pop bent to perform. Perennial favourites include: Gordon Lightfoot, The Travellers and Ian and Sylvia. The related Mariposa in the Schools program nurtured child entertainers like Sharon, Lois and Bram, Raffi and Eric Nagler. Difficult birth 1961-1967 Ruth Jones, her husband Dr. Crawford Jones and Pete McGarvey organized the first Mariposa Folk Festival in August 1961. It was named after the fictional town that Stephen Leacock and modelled on Orillia, Ontario, where the first festival was held in the summer of 1961. Its inaugural event, covered by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, featured all Canadian performers. Although obviously music performance began and remains the most important function of the festival, it also included academic study and record label networking. Among the first participants were: The Travellers group, Ian and Sylvia duo, solist Karen James, song collector Edith Fowke, Prestige Records executive Kenneth Goldstein and musicologist Richard Johnston. Despite all its musical and financial success, Orillia banned the festival because of the public disturbances it brought at its evening concerts, most notably in 1962. So began its long trek across southern and central Ontario looking for a permanent home. Undeterred by the bad publicity, the festival continued further south under the artistic direction of Estelle Klein who would remain at the helm until 1979. The first festival held in the Toronto area, in 1964, was at Maple Leaf Stadium. The subsequent three festivals were held at Innis Lake in Caledon northwest of the city. Tom Bishop was now president, and he brought people like Owen McBride from Ireland, Louise Forestier and Leonard Cohen from Quebec and Buffy Sainte-Marie from Saskatchewan. Precarious zenith 1968-1979 Finally, some stability was reached in 1968 when it moved to Centre Island in Toronto Harbour. The following year, the Toronto Guild of Canadian Folk Artists took over the responsibility for organizing the festival. Mariposas music workshops continued as performers demonstrated a variety of instrumental techniques, regional music traditions, and thematically selected songs. Audience participation was expanded beyond this to include crafts displays and workshops as well. Although big name performers like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Joan Baez were still heard at the festival, Klein and her colleagues tried to promote little known artists instead. Throughout the 1970s, Aboriginal -- that is Indian and Inuit -- performers like Alanis Obomsawin, Willie Dunn and Inuit throat singers were given exposure to an appreciative and wider audience. Troubles with security and crowd control continued to bedevil Mariposa, and after disturbances in 1970 it switched away from main stage evening concerts to simultaneous multi-stage daytime concerts. In 1977, Mariposa Folk Foundation became the organizing body, but after two years the festival ceased to exist. Tenuous rebirth since 1980 During Mariposas two-year hiatus (and later in the mid-1980s), likeminded groups organized similar but less ambitions events such as the Toronto Folk Festival and Northwind Folk Festival on the Toronto Islands. Mariposa proper was revived as The Canadians-Les Canadiens at Harbourfront on mainland Toronto in 1982. Mariposa reclaimed its name (for a while) and its annual schedule in 1984 when it relocated to Molson Park in Barrie. The Mariposa Folk Festival lost its Folk moniker in 1987 and experimented with Roots Music as its replacement. In 1991, the festival returned to the Toronto waterfront at Ontario Place. It was held as two separate Mariposa Festivals in 1996 at Bracebridge and Coburg. Finally, in 2000 Mariposa returned to its orginal name and location in Orillia, where it remains for now. Old and new blended, as the line up for the oddly named 40th anniversary festival included hometown boy Gordon Lightfoot, the world-renowned Travellers and folk favourites Tanglefoot, as well as the comic-pop stylings of The Arrogant Worms and Moxy Fruvous. External links *Toronto Star article, 1987
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