Multicultural Festival returns to Concord
There’s something for everyone at the 18th annual Concord Multicultural Festival happening on Sunday, Sept. 21, in Keach Park. That’s the core philosophy of the constantly evolving event. It was introduced as the Refugee Resettlement Program was altering the capital city’s demographics, according to the festival’s director.
“It was a way to introduce new cultures and our new neighbors to the community, and the best way to do that is through food, music and art — and Concord loves its festivals,” Jessica Livingston said by phone recently. “Now it’s about just celebrating the people who are here, whether you came recently or your family immigrated here many years ago.”
A high point of the celebration is a flag parade.
“Every year, we add on a couple more flags based on what’s requested, so we know what the diversity is,” Livingston continued. “We have flags from almost 80 different countries for this year, which means that we are extremely diverse here.”
It’s apparent in the entertainment. Percussive guitarist Senie Hunt came to Concord when he and his sister were adopted from war-torn Sierra Leone. He’s now in Nashville, but was so impressed by his first festival a few years ago that he’s returned since. Last year, he urged people to “come up and really see for themselves how vibrant the community can be.”
The wide and varied lineup continues with Anya Vaidya performing an ethnic Nepali dance, Afrobeats and hip-hop from Martin Toe, the soulful Nashua singer Ruby Shabazz, Roy Caceres doing Argentinian tango songs, a French-language set from the Linda Pouliot Quartet, Nusantara Kreasindo doing traditional Indonesian dance, among many others.
Barranquilla Flavor, a local group of dancers both young and adult, will perform several different styles of dance during the day, including traditional African, Afghan, Cumbia and hip-hop. The troupe is led by Sindy Chown, who is both co-chair and performance director for the festival. Chown will also do a salsa dance with her daughter, Soraya.
Chown and her daughter teach in Concord.
“She’s from Colombia, and her dance group is a diverse group of children, but anybody is welcome,” Livingston said. “They learn all kinds of different cultural dances, and they travel to other festivals in the region to perform, and it’s free for kids to participate, which is awesome.”
For many years the festival was held in front of the Statehouse. It moved to Keach Park after taking a year off due to the pandemic. Factoring into the decision was the challenge of downtown parking, and an awareness that “most of the new Americans live up on the Heights,” Livingston said, “That’s actually the most diverse neighborhood in the entire state.”
Getting people downtown from there was always difficult, she continued. “So we’re like, wait a minute, why are we down here? So we thought we should be at Keach Park, in the community, that is the most diverse. And a park is just a much better location to do a festival of this size and scope.”
Livingston has worked with the festival since 2013, something she said happened by accident. The previous organizers were organizing it one year, and she was working on a different event. “We were going to partner and host both of our events at the same time, to kind of bring in more people,” she said.
The following year, Livingston reached out to the festival’s team only to find out that they were bowing out.
“They were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to do it again, you can do it,’” she said. She tried availing other groups in the city, but soon learned that everyone wanted it to happen, “but nobody wanted to take the lead.”
Many were willing to help, and together they made it happen. Oddly, it was Livingston’s first Multicultural Festival, but she was hooked.
“I grew up here in Concord and was never really exposed to any other cultures,” she said. “I was a very sheltered New England girl.”
Seeing the festival come together flipped a switch, she continued.
“I just remember that day,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Is everything in place, is the DJ here, is the table set up?’ Then I stopped for a minute. There were hundreds of people there, and the vibe was just so beautiful. I just continued doing it … it kind of changed my career path.”
Concord Multicultural Festival
When: Sunday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Keach Park, 20 Canterbury Road, Concord
More: concordnhmulticulturalfestival.org
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.
