Belly dancer Elizabeth Muise of Boom Boom Shake performs during the opening day of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

PARKERSBURG – A crowd gathered Friday evening in City Park for opening day of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival.

The festival opened at 6 p.m. with a ceremony during which members of the festival board and the winners of the festival pageant were introduced and where Belpre Mayor Susan Abdella spoke a few words.

“Welcome to the festival,” Abdella said. “It’s one of my favorite times of the year… please enjoy yourself.”

During the ceremony, FirstEnergy Corp. Regional External Affairs Consultant Jame Connor, presented festival co-founder Bea Corra with a donation for $5,000.

According to Corra, this is the 27th festival, and it has been going on since 1996, with a few years skipped due to COVID. The festival was started by her and Eugene Donoway, according to Corra, as a reaction to the times.

Belly dancer Elizabeth Muise of Boom Boom Shake performs during the opening day of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

“During that time there was still Ku Klux Klan things going on in this area … Every time something like that would happen there would be a lot of concern and talk about what can we do,” Corra said.

So she and Donoway started the festival because “we wanted to do something that would be a positive angle to diversity,” she said.

She said the festival is free and open to all.

Corra said the festival has grown ever since, with less than 1,000 people attending the first year and with last year seeing 10,000-13,0000 people attend. She said this year there are about 25 different acts that will perform, around 60 vendors selling goods and there are around 15 food vendors.

According to the festival’s website, acts range from African, to jazz, to Scottish, to blues, to Mexican and more. The food choices range from Polish to Jamaican to Filipino and beyond.

Belly dancer Elizabeth Muise of Boom Boom Shake performs during the opening day of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

The website said the first day of the festival was Friday from 6-10 p.m. and it also runs Saturday from 11 a.m.- 10 p.m. and Sunday 12-5 p.m.

A complete list of acts, vendors and food choices can be found at https://movmcf.org/.

Friday night the first act to perform was Boom Boom Shake, a belly dancing act. According to the group’s website, it was founded by Elizabeth Muise, a professional belly dancer and is composed of several other dancers and musicians.

Boom Boom Shake played traditional Greek music and some other styles and Muise belly danced, including with scarves in some of her performances.

Japanese dancer Kanae Yoshida and blues band the Shawn Booker Dammit Band also performed Friday night.

Courtney Knoch, owner of Marietta Henna, left, gives Parkersburg resident Martha Klimas a henna tattoo on the first day of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

According to Corra, the festival is a chance for free expression.

“I think it’s a festival of free expression …. It’s just an appreciation of differences … That’s what we are for, an appreciation of different nationalities, different cultures, different kinds of folks,” she said.

Friends, Nitro, W.Va., resident Calabria Simmons, Parkersburg resident Olli Douglas and Dunbar, W.Va., resident Jhaisey Richardson came to enjoy this appreciation of differences.

Simmons said it was her first time visiting the festival.

“I think it really brings together spiritual people to celebrate different people,” Simmons said, adding it is an opportunity to meet people from different walks of life and “just learn from the people.”

Lily Webb, owner of Products by Lily, who is from Tennessee, crochets a hat at her booth during the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

Douglas has come to the festival since childhood.

“I love it here,” Douglas said. “I love the different kinds of art and materials people bring.”

Richardson said it was her first time at the festival too.

“It has a good energy to it,” she said.

She said it was nice that everyone came to see different walks of life and that the “energy is so amazing here.”

FirstEnergy Corp. Regional External Affairs Consultant Jame Connor, right, presents Co-founder of the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Bea Corra with a donation for $5,000 during the opening ceremony of the festival Friday evening. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

Parkersburg resident Martha Klimas also came to the festival for the first time Friday night. She said her brother told her about it because she didn’t know there was something like that here.

“I had to come see what it’s all about,” she said.

Klimas received a henna tattoo from Courtney Knoch, owner of Marietta Henna, while she was at the festival.

Klimas said it was the first tattoo of any kind she has ever gotten.

“I just had to have a hummingbird tattoo,” she said.

Klimas also enjoyed shopping for plants saying one of the vendors had “the most beautiful plants.”

The festival’s schedule includes:

SATURDAY

11 a.m. – High Schools That Rock

12: p.m. – Pittsburgh Samba – Brazilian Dance

12:40 p.m. – Megan Bee – Americana UK music

1:45 p.m. – Hula Dancers – Polynesian dance

2:50 p.m. – Aurora Celtic – Celtic Music

4:30 p.m. – Pittsburgh Samba – Brazilian Dance

5:10 p.m. – Josh Donaway – local musician

5:30 p.m. – Allegro – italian dance

6:25 p.m. – Soph Stevens – folk music

6:45 p.m. – Wayward Dancers – bellydance

7 p.m. – Buffalo Wabs & The Price Hill Hustle – Appalachian Music

8:30 p.m. – The Phoenix Twirlers – Local baton twirlers

8:30 p.m. – The Flex Crew – reggae music

SUNDAY

12 p.m. – Interfaith Devotions

12:30 p.m. – Folkloric Dance troupe – Eastern European Dance

1 p.m. – The Pipes & Drums of St. Andrew – Scottish music

1:40 p.m. – African drumming

2:50 p.m. – Folkloric Dance Troupe – Israeli Dance

3:30 p.m. – Fingers of Light – Grateful Dead cover band

From left, Nitro, W.Va., resident Calabria Simmons, Parkersburg resident Olli Douglas, center, smiles as Dunbar, W.Va., resident Jhaisy Richardson poses for a photo during the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday night. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)

Dunbar, W.Va., resident Jhaisy Richardson, left, Nitro, W.Va. resident Calabria Simmons, center, and Parkersburg resident Olli Douglas talk and laugh during the Mid-Ohio Valley Multi-Cultural Festival Friday night. (Photo by Michelle Dillon)