NEWS RELEASE
STORYTELLING ORILLIA
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It took a few folks to get the Mariposa Folk Festival back to Orillia, folks who were willing to become festival hustlers/badgers and Orillia boosters and negotiators with the Mariposa Folk Foundation leaders in Toronto, according to one of them. SO… why do it? There’s a story, of course.
Come and listen to festival history being told – if not fabricated – by four inspired and inspiring folks who worked to bring the festival home: Tim Lauer, Gord Ball, Don Evans and Ted Duncan.
Join them for a Side By Each story circle at the Orillia Museum of Art and History on June 23, from 2 to 4 p.m., as they share some Mariposa Moments in the midst of the museum’s current exhibit, Free Spirits: The Mariposa Folk Festival in Orillia.
Co-hosted by the museum and Storytelling Orillia, this circle will be a once-in-a-lifetime chance hear the folks behind the return of the folk festival tell their Mariposa stories.
Tim Lauer will lead off, and once he’s given the others a chance to chime in, anyone in attendance can take a turn to share their own Mariposa Moments.
What makes Mariposa your festival? What makes it Orillia’s festival? Your stories are part of it, and are welcome.
Tim Lauer loved Mariposa before it was Mariposa. In the summer of ‘61 as a ten-year- old Tim got to hang out around the Bay St. home of Dr. Casey and Ruth Jones (McVeigh) and watch as Mariposa came into being. Forty years later he again had a front row seat as the wayward Mariposa Folk festival ceased it’s provincial meandering and returned home.
Gord Ball describes himself as an old folkie who still gets nostalgic over the halcyon days of the 60s when folk music ruled, when the Mariposa Folk Festival as a gentle and laid-back event on Toronto Island and when Gordon Lightfoot was singing some of Gord Ball’s favourite songs. He says, “Following a series of wonderful Orillia Arts for Peace festivals during the 80s and 90s, in 1996 Tim Lauer, Don Evans and I began to work on returning Mariposa to Orillia, where it belongs.” He continues to recruit and organize the “Mariposa Ambassadors” who introduce acts on the festival’s side stages and put a Mariposa face on the festival.
Don Evans, a former city councillor, sometime cartoonist, editor and, with the band called Alex, an occasional singer and bodhran player, has been a performer, an organizer and long-time believer in Mariposa. When asked to explain himself, he says he is usually at a loss for words. He now lives in St. Catharines where, so far, he claims, he has managed to stay out of grievous trouble.
Ted Duncan, along with Tim, Gord and Don, was part of the first organization (Festival Orillia) that brought Mariposa back to Orillia in 2000. He has served as the festival’s organizing chair (twice) and its president, and has been an Ambassador for the last 10 years. Ted describes Mariposa as a great organization that works for a year to get ready for three days every July.
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