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2024

Indigenous Voices of the Americas

Celebrating the National Museum of the American Indian
Curved exterior of the National Museum of the American Indian in DC, pale bricks glowing as if during sunrise.

The National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington, D.C., in September 2004.

Photo © 2004 Judy Davis/Hoachlander Davis Photography for Smithsonian

A man performs a hoop dance, with several rings blurred as they extend outward from him, on a Smithsonian-branded stage.

At the 2016 Folklife Festival, the late Kevin Locke—a renowned hoop dancer, musician, and storyteller of the Lakota Sioux and Anishinabe tribes—performed in a showcase of National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship winners.

Photo by Pruitt Allen, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Wooden bowls of pale yellow corn kernels next to dried red corn cobs on a table.

The cultural significance of corn was a uniting factor in both 2023 Festival programs: The Ozarks and Creative Encounters: Living Religions in the U.S.

Photo by Shannon Binns, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Hawaiian hula dancers perform on stage, wearing matching black dresses, red printed skirts, and thick beaded necklaces and headbands.

Hulu dancers in UNUKUPUKUPU, led by Dr. Taupōuri Tangarō at Hawai‘i Community College, performed in the 2012 Festival program Campus and Community.

Photo by Walter Larrimore, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

A crowd of people, many in matching red T-shirts, circle hand-in-hand around a tipi in the grass.

As part of the 2022 Earth Optimism × Folklife program, students and staff from Aaniiih Nakoda College shipped the pieces of a tipi from Montana and then raised it in a ceremony on the National Mall.

Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Close-up on hands as they grasp small, smooth stones on a table alongsider wooden game boards with carved divots for the stones.

In 2010, the Festival turned Smithsonian Inside Out, sharing work of the museums and research centers. Staff members from the National Museum of the American Indian led Indigenous basketweaving and game activities.

Photo by Katherine Fogden, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

June 26–July 1, 2024

“We always have our ancestors at our back... This connection assures us that when we move forward, we can never be lost because we always know how to get back home. The future is a realm we have inhabited for thousands of years.”
—Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Across the Western Hemisphere, thousands of Indigenous communities are sustaining traditional practices and contributing to a more equitable future. Today, these individuals and nations define who they are, through their own stories in their own words.

In 2024, Indigenous Voices of the Americas: Celebrating the National Museum of the American Indian highlights living traditions of Indigenous peoples. At its core, the program honors contemporary and traditional creative expressions, celebrations, and community connections that feed new possibilities for Indigenous futures. The program is co-presented by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Park Service.

The program marks several milestones for the museum:

1989 (35th anniversary): Congress passed the National Museum of the American Indian Act

1994 (30th anniversary): The George Gustav Heye Center opened in New York City

1999 (25th anniversary): The Cultural Resources Center opened in Maryland, housing NMAI collections and research facilities and incorporating Indigenous practices into collections care

2004 (20th anniversary): The National Museum of the American Indian opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

We are honored to welcome back Festival alumni and excited to establish new relationships on the National Mall. Indigenous artists and makers, professional chefs and home cooks, musicians, dancers, athletes, and storytellers will demonstrate the depth of multigenerational traditions as well as new, innovative approaches to cultural expression. As they share their creative traditions and stories, artists and community members invite us to discuss important matters of social justice, cultural equity, and youth leadership.

Programming will animate four primary themes: Relevance, Resistance, Representation, and Reclamation. Join a circle of celebration with stories, songs, and dance. Experience ancestral foods like the Three Sisters (beans, corn, and squash) and inventive, sustainable cuisine. Learn stories that underlie Indigenous sports and games. Hear how Indigenous youth are reclaiming their languages through spoken-word and hip-hop. Explore traditional arts that flourish in their connections to place and environmental knowledge.

Crossing regions, nations, and cultures, the Festival makes space for crucial conversations and new lines of dialogue, all the while affirming the value and vitality of Indigenous cultures today and into the future. We invite you to join us in this celebration of culture, community, and creativity.

    • The Museum’s Opening Festival

    In September 2004, the Smithsonian marked the grand opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., with the First Americans Festival, co-produced by the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The Native Nations Procession welcomed thousands of individuals representing hundreds of Indigenous communities across the Americas, and music and dance stages showcased the diversity of performance and ceremonial traditions.

    Twenty years later, the six-day event is still the largest gathering of Indigenous people that has ever occurred on the National Mall.

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