SEQUIM — A nearly 9-foot opera singer-elf will return to Sequim this Saturday.
Janet Rayor, also known as the stilt dancer, will waft through the crowd at the 111th Irrigation Festival Arts & Crafts Show on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Though Rayor’s performance is set for Saturday only, the Arts & Crafts Show will go on Sunday, too, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This is the first weekend of the Irrigation Festival, the longest-running community party in the state.
Next Saturday, May 13, downtown Sequim will be the venue for the Grand Parade, to begin proceeding west at noon from the intersection of Washington Street and Dunlap Avenue.
At last year’s festival, the “stilt lady” won the adoration of the crowd, said organizer Emily Westcott.
All day on stilts
Rayor walks atop 2-inch square stilt tips and morphs from one persona to another.
“She works it all day long, up and down that fair,” said Westcott.
Her costumes depend on the weather.
“Hopefully I will be an opera singer who has outgrown the large opera houses of the world and has come to Sequim to be truly appreciated,” Rayor wrote in an e-mail to Peninsula Daily News.
The opera singer “will be creating songs especially for individual festival-goers,” she said, adding that she may also turn herself into a hormonally challenged elf.
Changes at the show
The stilt walker will find this year’s Arts & Crafts Show, at Seal and Cedar streets, has been tweaked and fleshed out.
“The food is being moved down by the entertainment,” Westcott said.
Visitors won’t have to walk several blocks down Cedar to refuel. Food vendors will be set up between City Hall and the Transit Center, next to the performers.
Another new feature will be bleachers, so people can sit and watch bands such as Sunshine Generation (10 a.m. Saturday), Naki’i (10 a.m. Sunday) the Northwest Country Boys (1:30 p.m. Sunday).
Soundacres, a marimba band composed of Five Acre School students, will step up to play at noon Saturday.
“They are really good,” said Westcott.
Saturday night, festival-goers will have a chance to burn off the fair food at the street dance.
That event features Fat Chance, a 1970s-through-2006 rock band, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The festival beer garden will stay open during the dance.
“Pray for sunshine,” Westcott said.
More than 75 vendors will spread out their wares during the show, said publicist Paulette Waldron. Many are new this year.
“All of the stuff is handmade. The vendors come from all over,” Waldron added.
The selection ranges from photographs and clothing to wood crafts, jewelry and pottery.
Saturday will also bring indoor activities such as Kids’ Day to the Boys & Girls Club, 400 W. Fir St.
Face painting, crafts, a bounce house, a planting project and other children’s activities will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. A Touch-a-Truck and Gold Wing motorcycle display will be set up outside the club from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Youngsters will face the weather, however, if they enter the Kids’ Parade at the Sequim High School track, 603 N. Sequim Ave. Participants can choose a category: cartoon character, storybook character, historical figure or best-dressed pet, and line up by 10 a.m. for the parade’s 10:30 a.m. start.
The weekend’s events are free. More details can be found at www.irrigationfestival.com.