Sharon Bryant ducked out from under a tent last night, heading for Virginia Intertribal Dance Group and Drum.

She was about to perform with the group at the Ukrop's/First Market Bank Stage. Bryant is a member of the Monacan Nation in Amherst County, and she couldn't be happier to be part of Virginia Intertribal.

"The Monacans are kind of left out," she said, brown eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled. "We're over there in the Blue Ridge."

For Bryant, the best part of the group, which formed about three years ago, is getting to know other American Indians.

"We've bonded so well, we miss each other if we go a month or two without performing."

She and her friends are on the Tribal Council in Amherst, where they study traditional ways such as dance, pottery, bead work and basket-weaving.

"We want to preserve them before they're gone completely."

. . .

Coming down the hill from the Capital One Family Area toward Tredegar Street last night, visitors commented on the strings of small white lights stretched across a row of tall, dark objects.

The lights that gave such a friendly glow to the area -- putting the "festive" in festival -- were strung across the tops of the portable toilets.

. . .

Angie Macri and Randy Aye, both of Richmond, squeezed past the overflow crowd and into the packed tent on Brown's Island to hear Vishten, which plays traditional music from Prince Edward Island, Canada.

The couple were enjoying the mix of fiddle, accordion, whistle and guitar but couldn't figure out how to categorize the band. Aye thought maybe Celtic before a band member likened it to Cajun.

"I guess I never heard Cajun music," Aye said, laughing.

He said the authenticity and diversity of performers is what makes the folk festival so fun.

"You hear everything here. You see a little bit of everything here," he said. "It's more of a heritage festival than a folk festival."

Macri was eager to soak it all in.

"It's a lovely night to start a great event," she said.

. . .

You know the National Folk Festival is a hit when you've got a 5-year-old girl passing on a play date so she can attend opening night.

Kim Lindblad of Richmond brought her daughters, Zoe, 3, and Isabella, 5, to the festival after Isabella chose it over an invitation to a friend's house.

"We're big fans. We've been both times the whole time," said Lindblad, who was parked on a blanket in front of the Ukrop's/First Market Bank Stage. "We're excited to know it's going to stay [after the national festival's three-year run ends tomorrow]. Richmond's going to take it over."

. . .

Richmond musician Gary Gerloff, ordering a Kona coffee from the Maui Wowi vendor on Brown's Island, waxed poetic about the folk festival.

"It's the bomb," he said. "Every year, it gets better and better."

One of his favorite memories of the festival's Richmond tenure is from the first year.

"There was that awful rain, and here was a mariachi band from California."

Despite the downpour, he said, the band -- a harpist flanked by about half-a-dozen fiddlers and half-a-dozen guitarists -- kept right on going. "And there were two dancers going through three costume changes!"

. . .

Ubaldo Sanchez, who lives in Arlington, got down on his knees yesterday morning.

He was hard at work by 11 a.m. creating an alfombra, or flower carpet, for the National Folk Festival. The intricate alfombra, made of hand-dyed sawdust, rice, dried beans and flowers, is traditionally part of Semana Santa, or Holy Week, in his native Guatemala.

The carpet Sanchez and his team of artists made yesterday included three giant National Folk Festival logos, between which were various musical instruments.

The finished product -- white, green, purple, blue and orange -- was about 5 feet wide and 46 feet long. The white border was made entirely of rice. Beginning at 11 a.m. today, Sanchez will create another whole carpet, from scratch, at Tredegar Iron Works Plaza.