About

GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance is a mission-based (501-c3) organization that hosts four music/dance festivals and two sustainability fairs a year in three different states across the east coast. GrassRoots brings multi-cultural communities together through the magic of music, art, dance, education, wellness and sustainability.

The original Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival began in 1990 as a benefit concert to support a local AIDS organization in Ithaca, NY. The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival has become an internationally-recognized event with a focus on traditional and contemporary roots music and dance from all over the world.

Thirteen years later, the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival was launched on a 75-acre farm in the rural town of Pittsboro, North Carolina near the triangle cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. There is a festival on this site, owned by the partnering organization the Shakori Hills Community Arts Center, in both spring and fall. This spring will be the 14th annual Spring Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance.

In 2012, the festival moved down south again, for the winter, having found an amazing site, the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, just off the coast of Miami, FL. This year celebrated the 5th anniversary of the Virginia Key GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance.

GrassRoots works to nurture local artists and talent while reaching around the globe to bring world music and culture to new audiences, creating environments that inspire creativity and foster community building. The impact of GrassRoots expands far beyond that which occurs during these four-day festivals. For over 25 years, GrassRoots has served to both engage and give back to the local and regional communities in which we exist by providing financial and organizational support to impact positive change.

http://www.shakorihillsgrassrootsfest.org