A stilt walker, a typewriter poet and a wandering magician will bring some different energy to this year’s Ocrafolk Festival, June 5 to 7, on the Berkley Manor grounds.
The wandering magician is 15-year-old Eli Logan, said David Tweedie, the festival executive director.
Poet and teacher Kevin Devaney will set up a little stand and will create poems for customers on the spot.
His partner, Poppy, is a henna artist, and will be doing henna tattoos.
A stilt walker named Lanky Lou will roam the grounds.
The festival will also feature some new musical energy.
One of those is the Kathleen Parks Trio. She is a Celtic and American fiddler and singer-songwriter. “She does an amazing job of playing the fiddle and singing at the same time,” Tweedie said. “It’s fascinating to watch that.”
Sweet Megg is one of the lead singers for the band Postmodern Jukebox. She’s been a lead in Cirque du Soleil’s “Songblazers: A Journey into Country Music” show.
“So, we’re really excited about what she might be bringing,” he said.
Rhonda Robichaux & Meaux, originally from New Orleans, “blends blues and soul and funk and samba and all sorts of stuff.”
Another youth, Asher Brinson, a 16-year-old left-handed picker and singer-songwriter from Newport, is on the lineup.
Dear MiriBella and the Pigkickers is an up-and-coming sibling bluegrass band whose music is rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains; and a Celtic band, Jenny and the Weasels, from Eastern Tennessee, also will perform.
Among the returning artists, the Foreign Landers, International Bluegrass Music Award winners who debuted last year, will enrich their sound with two more musicians.
The Rev. Robert Jones and the Jeff Little Trio will return.
Along with popular island storyteller Donald Davis, Jasmine Cardenas, who is a Latina storyteller, will make her Ocrafolk Festival debut.
She’s been selected by UNESCO and International Theater Institute as an emerging theater artist for World Theater Day, Tweedie said.
Local performers include Martin Garrish and the Ocracoke Rockers; Molasses Creek, who are the festival hosts; Brooke+Nick; Katie Mitchell and Daniel Bradley and John Lea, who are the Playin’ Possums; and the Ocracoke Student Ballet Folklorico.
Saturday night activities will happen at Ocracoke Coffee and at 1718 Brewing Ocracoke.
Youth 17 and under are admitted for free; and residents, property owners and businesses can sign up for free tickets.
“Even if they think they’re not sure whether they’ll be able to make it to much of the site, it just makes things a lot easier if they sign up fort hat ahead of time,” Tweedie said.
For more information and tickets, visit www.ocracokealive.org, and follow the links on the ticket page.
The box office will be moved to the back entrance of the Berkley property off Water Plant Road, Tweedie said. Sponsors and the volunteers will check in there, and folks will come to pick up their pre-order tickets at that location.