For one day a year, Northport transforms from a small town to the host of the busy Leelanau Uncaged festival.
“I’ve always thought we needed a fall festival, maybe something like an Oktoberfest,” Andy Thomas, founder and vice-president of the festival, said. “We have some nice weather in the fall, and it’s a great time to get out and do something outdoors.”
This year is the 11th annual Leelanau Uncaged festival, which took a one-year break because of COVID-19 in 2020, will take place Saturday.
Thomas was inspired for the festival when he attended John Cage’s Musicircus event at
Macalester College in Minnesota.
“All of the music was going on at the same time, but you could lean in and hear any particular group,” Thomas said. “I thought back on the event and thought, if I was going to do something, I’d want to do something kind of like John Cage.”
Thomas wanted to have the festival grow, but knew after the first couple that it would only get more popular. Last year Thomas estimated up to 7,000 people attended the one day festival.
Thomas said that the festival is designed to have something for everyone to do, even the kids at the Kids’ Uncaged part of the festival.
This year, the festival will have 34 acts across seven different stages with one dedicated to dance or theater, which is planned out by the festival board president and music committee chair, Jonah
Powell.
“It’s a lot of word of mouth,” Powell said. “We had several performers this year who we were completely unaware of until they had applied on the website, and we’re very glad they did because I think they’re going to add a lot to the festival.”
Finding performers is a full- year time commitment, as Powell said that once the festival ends, the application form for musicians is posted for the next year.
This year there are a couple new events, one of which the art students at Northport prepared a creature that will be burned up.
“People will have put pieces of paper with their troubles on them so that at the end of the
festival, this creature will be burned up,” Susan Ager, board secretary and marketing committee chair, said. “It’s going to happen at 6 o’clock at the heart of the festival by the information tent.”
Another act that is new this year is called Sandbox Ensemble, which has two local musicians and two local dancers who will be improvising in John Cage fashion. The entire performance will be
responding to each other and the audience.
This year, the festival will start through a ceremonial Water Blessing at 11 a.m. through honoring
the words of Anishinaabe Water Protectors. Once the blessing is over, a procession will follow leading to the center of the festival with the music starting at noon. Once music starts, it will be 10 hours of uninterrupted music with different genres of music. There will be food vendors along with art vendors through the streets of Northport.
