First, I’d like to welcome Alissa Van Winkle, Melody Dworak, and Andrew Sherburne back to Little Village, and thank Andy Brodie for also becoming part of the team. I am more than grateful that they have returned to the fold. LV has been an essential tradition in the Iowa City area for a good number of years now, presenting an eclectic mix of arts news, intriguing features, local stories, and just plain funkiness that is nowhere else to be found. As this column focuses on what creates place, I am a dedicated supporter of a publication that does just that—helping to create place. IC needs LV. Thanks again for bringing it back from its hiatus!

And what a great time to come back—the start of summer is in full swing, and in Iowa City, that means festivals! During the months in the center of the calendar, our city comes alive in a way unlike any other time of year. The festival has a long history as a cultural centerpiece. It is a communal gathering that expresses who and what we are, builds community bonds, and honors a collective character that transcends any one of us. The word “festival,” of course, has its origins in the word “feast.” There is a literal dimension to that etymology, but I also look on the word origin to mean that, in a community festival, we “feast” on what makes a place to which we are connected and which we love.

Over the years, Iowa City expressed its character during the summer in a lot of ways. We are a city of arts. So it was natural that the Iowa Arts Festival was born and flourished. One of the arts we love is music, and we knew we had a great venue for the entire community to enjoy it: the Pedestrian Mall. So the Friday Night Concert Series was born. And so was the Iowa City Jazz Festival. And then, not too long ago, the Saturday Night Free Movie Series came along, expanding the cultural pallet. As the most recent addition, the Landlocked Film Festival joined the lot! Soon, summers were so full of exciting events that the entire summer was one big cultural festival. We are a people who create culture with passion and enthusiasm, and we gave voice to that identity along the streets and sidewalks and public areas of downtown.

We all know that such undertakings, even if they are organically related to the soul of our community, do not happen spontaneously. People need to organize them, and people need to fund them. Iowa City had a great track record of civic-minded volunteers stepping forth to put these festivals together and generous community lovers who shared their treasure to make them possible. But the essence of community is interconnection, and isolated efforts usually wither. At least one or two of the Iowa City summer traditions were actually in danger of extinction. In 2005, the one thing happened that always makes a community sustainable—people cooperated for mutual benefit. The Summer of the Arts, as an organization, was an elegant solution, and one that defines what great communities are always about. City government, public institutions, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations came together to make life better for all of us. And the fact that the organization keeps growing, as with the addition of the Landlocked Film Festival, shows that true civic engagement—engaging with each other—is the path to community success.

Iowa City sometimes has a split personality. Because we are the location of The University of Iowa, we are cosmopolitan. People from all over the country, indeed all over the world, visit here and come to live here, sometimes for a short while and sometimes forever. Because of the vibrancy of the accumulation of so many perspectives and experiences, we enjoy a diversity unusual for a city this size. So we are able to offer a broad spectrum of cultural experiences and actually have them supported, in a way most commonly found in places like San Francisco or New York or Chicago.

Because of who we are, we can bring the international favorite Paquito D’Rivera to the stage or an Icelandic director’s film to the screen. But we as Iowa Citians are also of this place, of Iowa. No matter how long or short we stay here, we must not forsake the indigenous character of our relationship to the community. I think it’s equally important that we not only wave our national and international credentials, but also our local spirit. So we are also just as much about Dave Moore singing his hysterical “Coralville” song and (former) Iowans Kelly and Tammy Rundle’s showing us the dark side of small-town Iowa in their Villisca: Living with a Mystery documentary.

So—it’s summer, and it’s festival time. As we build our bonds of common identity by sharing our expressions of culture, let’s feast just as richly at the family supper table as we do at the chabudai. After all, that’s who we are.