Less than three months after taking over the position, Folkmoot USA Executive Director Jamye Cooper is spearheading several new efforts designed to increase both monetary and popular support for the two-week international dance extravaganza.

Every July — this year from July 18 through July 31 — more than 400 folk dancers and musicians from around the world arrive in the region to share the traditional folk culture of their nationality. From their base in Waynesville, the performers fan out across the region for a series of colorful, exotic performances.

Folkmoot is arguably the single largest tourism draw in Haywood County. The local community has warmly embraced the festival that brings costumed men on stilts, foreign dancers and exotic music as part of the July scenery. Reinvigorating that local support and interest was one of the primary challenges taken on by Cooper when she took the job following an 18-year reign by former executive director Jackie Bolden.

“This whole year has been about getting the community excited and involved,” Cooper said. First on her list was starting a corporate sponsorship program.

“You have private donors and you have ticket sales, but if you don’t have corporate sponsorship, you don’t have community buy-in,” Cooper said. When a local corporation or business becomes a sponsor, it’s a testimony to whether the business community values the festival — both for the quality of life enhancement the event adds for the corporations’ employees as well as the significant economic impact, Cooper said.

Folkmoot’s annual operating budget is around $500,000. Of that, $200,000 is spent during the two-week festival. Expenses for the rest of the year include everything from recruitment, insurance, utilities and salaries. It’s a mammoth year-round effort to pull off Folkmoot, Cooper said.

“Imagine you have 450 people coming at you who don’t speak English and they are staying at your house for two weeks,” Cooper said. “Add to the mix the logistics of putting on 60 performances in two weeks. There are rock stars who don’t do 60 performances in a year.”

The higher cost of gasoline — up 29 cents a gallon over this time last year — will put an extra strain on Folkmoot’s budget. Dozens of busses are needed to cart 450 performers back and forth to their appointed venues for two performances a day.

Corporate sponsorships could help keep ticket costs affordable for the community despite the rising costs of putting the festival on.

Cooper said she was pleasantly surprised at how many corporations stepped up to the plate on such short notice. In just four weeks, Cooper, with the help of Folkmoot Board of Directors, attracted 10 corporate sponsors with a total of more than $25,000.

“You can’t do that in four weeks for something that doesn’t mean a whole lot to the community. It shows the business community really recognizes the value of Folkmoot,” Cooper said. “That was a vote of confidence for us.”

Folkmoot has added a new venue this year in Highlands at the Martin Lipscomb Performing Arts Center.

“We’ve been contacted by arts councils in other counties that are interested in working with us to get a performance in their area,” Cooper said. But the popularity of Folkmoot makes it hard to cut a performance one place to add another. The performers are already spread thin during the two weeks and have little time as it is to see anything of America while they are here.

Bringing more dance troupes is not possible due to space constraints at the Folkmoot Center where the performers are fed and housed. The only option to accommodate requests for Folkmoot performances would be extending the length of the festival by a few days, Cooper said, something the board will consider in coming years.

Other new initiatives are focused on creating a unified image and brand for Folkmoot, from a poster campaign to a new Web site.

A special poster designed by a local artist accompanied the festival in its early years in the 1980s. Cooper said an annual poster release will again become a standing part of the festival, with a focus on photography. The rebirth of the annual Folkmoot poster arose during one of Cooper’s regular Tuesday morning marketing strategy sessions at Panacea Coffeehouse in Waynesville. The group was poring over photos to use on the front page of the Folkmoot Guidebook.

“The photography of Folkmoot is just incredible. It’s a waste not to use it for something other than the Web site and the program books,” Cooper said. The poster will also offer a way to generate excitement leading up to Folkmoot.

Folkmoot launched a new Web site — folkmootusa.org. The look of the site was completely overhauled. It is also more interactive and contains more information. Hard Times Creative, an advertising, image and design company based in Sylva, designed the poster, Web site and Folkmoot program booklet.