Calendar of Events

We invite you to bring your family, friends and neighbors to enjoy our first of many musical evenings in Biltmore Park Town Square. This Saturday, grab a blanket and join us in Cecil Park, the green space near Hickory Tavern and Brixx Wood Fired Pizza. BoogiTherapi, the All Star Funk Band, will be bringing all the energy and tunes! Come enjoy two full hours of live music, dancing and fun – free for everyone!

Rain or shine! In the event of inclement weather, the concert will be moved inside Hickory Tavern.

Jesse Barry, known for her soulful blues pipes and contagious enthusiasm on stage, began her music career at the tender age of eight years old. Influenced by Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, Carole King, Etta James, and Susan Tedeschi, Jesse has created her own, unique blues sound. She is often described as an “old soul” and audiences are stunned by the huge voice that comes out of her small body. Popularly known as “Skinny Legs” from Skinny Legs and All, a band she created as a teenager, Jesse has placed in the Mountain Xpress “Best Of” blues band category three years in a row, and has performed at B.B. King’s Club for the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, and at the Springing the Blues Festival in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Jesse competed on the popular TV show “American Idol” in season 9 and has made a lasting impact on her hometown, Asheville, North Carolina. She has recorded 3 albums with Skinny Legs and All and is currently working with her blues, funk, and soul group Jesse Barry and The Jam, special events band A Social Function, and her new Steely Dan tribute band Dirty Logic.

Join us at Hickory Nut Gap to see Jesse Barry and The Jam perform, eat farm-to-fork food, and prepare to dance!

Put on your dancing boots and join Friends of the Smokies for the 2nd annual “Smokies Stomp” Barn Party just outside of Asheville, NC. The Smokies Stomp supports projects and programs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park like Parks As Classrooms, which brings thousands of schoolchildren into the Smokies every year. Folks will be treated to a gourmet farm-to-table dinner, live music, drinks, square dancing, and the opportunity to visit with rangers from the National Park Service. So come on out for fun and fundraising at the Smokies Stomp Barn Party!

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival as a means for people to share and understand the beauty and dignity of the Southern Appalachian music, dance and storytelling traditions that have been handed down through generations in Western North Carolina. He saw the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival grow to be the oldest gathering of its kind in the nation and it continues in this way, a platform for the talented of the high country lying between the Great Smoky and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Come celebrate the 92nd Anniversary of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in our brand new, luxurious venue! Doors open each night at 5:30pm with performances starting promptly at 6:30pm.

If you like Shindig on the Green, you’ll love the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival! Proceeds support Shindig on the Green.

Advanced Purchase through July 31, 2019:

Adults $20.00, Students & Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $15.00/person.

At the Door:

Adults $25.00, Students $10.00, Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $20.00/person

Bascom Lamar Lunsford founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival as a means for people to share and understand the beauty and dignity of the Southern Appalachian music, dance and storytelling traditions that have been handed down through generations in Western North Carolina. He saw the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival grow to be the oldest gathering of its kind in the nation and it continues in this way, a platform for the talented of the high country lying between the Great Smoky and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Come celebrate the 92nd Anniversary of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in our brand new, luxurious venue! Doors open each night at 5:30pm with performances starting promptly at 6:30pm.

If you like Shindig on the Green, you’ll love the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival! Proceeds support Shindig on the Green.

Advanced Purchase through July 31, 2019:

Adults $20.00, Students & Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $15.00/person.

At the Door:

Adults $25.00, Students $10.00, Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $20.00/person

Bascom Lamar Lunsford founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival as a means for people to share and understand the beauty and dignity of the Southern Appalachian music, dance and storytelling traditions that have been handed down through generations in Western North Carolina. He saw the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival grow to be the oldest gathering of its kind in the nation and it continues in this way, a platform for the talented of the high country lying between the Great Smoky and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Come celebrate the 92nd Anniversary of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in our brand new, luxurious venue! Doors open each night at 5:30pm with performances starting promptly at 6:30pm.

If you like Shindig on the Green, you’ll love the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival! Proceeds support Shindig on the Green.

Advanced Purchase through July 31, 2019:

Adults $20.00, Students & Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $15.00/person.

At the Door:

Adults $25.00, Students $10.00, Children (6-12 years) $5.00, 3-night package $50.00, Group (10 or more) $20.00/person

This Friday, August 16th, we are excited to bring back what is becoming a cult favorite this summer! Fave local DJs Molly Parti and DJ Oso Rey will take turns spinning songs from the hits of the 80s vs. 90s, all for your dancing and reminiscing enjoyment. Make plans to get your crew together for a night filled with fun, friends, nostalgia and great tunes and craft beer at the Peel for just $5 in advance! The only decision is whether to wear leg-warmers and jelly bracelets, or bust out your favorite flannel shirt and your Docs.

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.

Curious about dance classes for your child, but want to be sure? Join us at any of our free classes at our Open House on August 24. Reserve your spot today, or go ahead and register for Fall classes at our website, terpsicorpsacademy.org.

10:15 AM – 11:00 AM
(ages 3-5) Creative Movement

11:00 AM – 11:45 AM
(ages 5-6) PreBallet / Tap 2

11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
(ages 3-5) Boy’s Creative Movement

12:00 PM – 12:45 PM
(ages 7-9) Ballet 1

12:15 PM – 1:00 PM
(ages 3-4) PreBallet/PreTap 1

1:00 PM – 1:45 PM
(ages 8.5-10) Ballet 2

1:15 PM – 2:00 PM
(ages 6-9) B-Boy Break Dancing

Join WNC Magazine senior editor and Friends of the North Carolina Room board member Jon Elliston as he recaps his yearlong written series with a multimedia presentation in the Lord Auditorium at Pack Memorial Library.

Learn more about:

**Asheville’s Fascist: William Dudley Pelley’s obscure but infamous Silver Shirt movement lives on in his paper trail

**Swannanoa’s Superspy: Carl Duckett’s unlikely journey from small-town roots to top CIA official

**Rosman’s Spy Base: When the National Security Agency set up a mountain espionage station, it was a hard secret to keep

**Senator Sam Ervin’s Secret Wars: He stuck to the Constitution through clashes with McCarthy, the Army, CIA, and Nixon

**School Under Scrutiny: The FBI’s files on Black Mountain College tell a little-known story of art, politics, and surveillance

My name is Meagan Lucas and I am a Hendersonville-based writer. I’m having a book launch for my debut novel, Songbirds and Stray Dogs, at the new Malaprop’s Pop-Up in downtown Hendersonville.

In Songbirds and Stray Dogs, 21 year old Beaufort waitress, Jolene, has spent the majority of her life living in the shadow of the pain her mother caused, and trying to prove herself worthy of her Aunt’s stingy love. Unintentionally pregnant and abandoned again, Jolene tries to outrun her shame in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Penniless, alone, and chased by demons from her past, she is forced to confront her mother’s legacy, and her own fear. Song Birds and Stray Dogs is a Southern story, born of sweet tea and the Bible Belt, chow-chow and cornbread, shot guns and porch rocking. But it is also a universal story of escaping the burden of your past and finding yourself at home in a strange land.

This comedy is often viewed as Shaw’s wittiest play! This is a borderline farce that will stimulate serious thinking about the nature of both romance and war. What is Raina to do when she finds that an enemy soldier has taken refuge in her room? What will her fiancée say? The plot, of course, thickens! Directed by Jim Reid and performed as Readers Theatre as a part of The Autumn Players’ Readers Theatre Showcase Series.

This comedy is often viewed as Shaw’s wittiest play! This is a borderline farce that will stimulate serious thinking about the nature of both romance and war. What is Raina to do when she finds that an enemy soldier has taken refuge in her room? What will her fiancée say? The plot, of course, thickens! Directed by Jim Reid and performed as Readers Theatre as a part of The Autumn Players’ Readers Theatre Showcase Series.

This comedy is often viewed as Shaw’s wittiest play! This is a borderline farce that will stimulate serious thinking about the nature of both romance and war. What is Raina to do when she finds that an enemy soldier has taken refuge in her room? What will her fiancée say? The plot, of course, thickens! Directed by Jim Reid and performed as Readers Theatre as a part of The Autumn Players’ Readers Theatre Showcase Series.

Attention all knights, pages, jesters, jousters, kings, queens, princesses and princes! Get your costumes ready, and come out and have some fun on September 7th! Boys, girls, moms, dads, come one, come all to the First Annual Renaissance Fair at the Farm. We have all sorts of fun demonstrations planned, such as fencing, sword fighting, and juggling. Other activities to be announced, including a costume contest!

Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting—not as muses but as artists. These women changed American art and society, tearing up the prevailing social code and replacing it with a doctrine of liberation. In Ninth Street Women, acclaimed author Mary Gabriel tells a remarkable and inspiring story of the power of art and artists in shaping not just postwar America but the future.

| A mystery novel set in Yonah, N.C.

Friday Night- 6:30-8:30pm, Full Retreat (9/13 and 9/14)- 9:30am-5:30pm

Based his new book, Drinking from the River of Light, this Mark Nepo workshop will center on the lifelong process of listening, reflecting, and expressing, and on how bearing witness to the truth of living reveals the mysteries of life.

As no one can live without inhaling and exhaling, no one can live without feeling and expressing. The life of expression is how the heart breathes and how our spirit grows in the life that carries it. The life of feeling, dialogue, and writing, whatever form they take—poetry, story, memoir, or reflection—open us to a personal form of expression, a necessary conversation with the Universe that helps us move through obstacles and transitions. As meditation is an ancient art that deepens our relationship to how we breathe, writing and storytelling are ancient arts that deepen our relationship to all that matters. And just as the reward for practicing meditation is not that we’ll become great breathers but that we’ll become clear vessels of life-force, the reward for practicing a personal form of expression is not that we’ll become great writers or great storytellers but that such practice will help us be more resilient and wake closer to life.

In this Mark Nepo workshop, Mark will open a heart space through which participants can discover their own rhythms of expression. Through poetry, stories, and metaphors, Through reflection, journaling, and dialogue, each participant will have the chance to practice listening and expressing. We are constantly being shaped by life into finer instruments of care and expression. The deeper we go, the more attuned we become, and the more we join with everything around us. This workshop will help you to inhabit a personal form of expression, by which you can strengthen your connections and find your way.

Topics in this Mark Nepo workshop include “The Chord in Our Heart,” “What It Means to See,” “Bearing Witness,” “Unraveling the Self,” “Giving and Getting Attention,” “Breaking Surface,” “Understanding Practice,” and “Fitting Things Together.”

Mark Nepo is a poet and philosopher who has taught in the fields of poetry and spirituality for forty years. A New York Times #1 bestselling author, he has published fourteen books and recorded eight audio projects. Recent work includes: Reduced to Joy (2013), Seven Thousand Ways to Listen which won the 2012 Books for a Better Life Award, Staying Awake (2012), Holding Nothing Back (2012), As Far As the Heart Can See (2011), Finding Inner Courage (2011),and Surviving Has Made Me Crazy (2007), as well as audio books of The Book of Awakening, Finding Inner Courage, and As Far As the Heart Can See (2011). As a cancer survivor, Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship.

Join us for family fun and dancing as we host Queen Bee and the Honeylovers at Biltmore Park Town Square! Queen Bee and the Honeylovers hail from Asheville, NC and bring us upbeat jazz and swing music. Please join us on the green at Cecil Park in Biltmore Park Town Square, located in front of Hickory Tavern and Brixx Pizza. Music will begin at 7pm and last until 9pm. Beer, wine and Dippin’ Dots for sale on the yard.

Hickory Nut Gap Farm and the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) have joined together to celebrate all those interested in pursuing a career in agriculture.

On Thursday, September 26th from 5pm to 9pm, all new and future farmers are invited to spend the evening enjoying a buffet of farm-raised bbq, drinks, and fellowship. To start the evening, attendees will enjoy a guided square dancing icebreaker, followed by live music by Bull Moose Party and finally an update from the NYFC on their tireless efforts on capitol hill lobbying for young farmers.

“With the average age of farm owners in the U.S. approaching 60 and all of the food-related challenges ahead of us in the coming decades it can often feel hopeless and daunting to be involved with agriculture in the 21st century. But the truth is, there is hope, there are more and more young and beginning farmers joining our food system every day; but with such a decentralized form of production, these young farmers often don’t have many options to connect with each other, network, and feel encouraged,” says Hickory Nut Gap farm director, Asher Wright. “Here at HNG we have a great event space and kitchen with the capacity to host an event, and so we are very excited to welcome the next generation of producers to our farm to connect with each other and be assured that nobody is alone in this industry.”

5p-6pm: Mingle and Official Welcome

6pm-9pm: Complimentary dinner, drinks, live music

Dinner: BBQ, farm-to-fork sides, fresh breads all prepared by our culinary team at Hickory Nut Gap Farm

Drinks: Each attendee will receive two (2) complimentary drink tickets that can be used for beer, wine, or specialty soft drinks. Water and tea are unlimited. Additional beverages available to purchase.

Beginner’s workshop lesson at 7:30 P.M., then 8-11 P.M. Contra Dance with Country Waltzing at the break and the final dance. This is a partner dance but it’s not necessary to come with a partner. We have different live bands and callers.