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Featured Program

  • Four young people in long evening gowns stand on stage, each with an open book and a microphone placed in front of them.
    Aliyah American Horse (NE), Stephanie Pacheco (NY), Zoe Dorado (CA), and Shnayjaah Jeanty (FL) perform at the National Youth Poet Laureate Commencement in April 2024 at the Kennedy Center.
    Photo courtesy of the National Youth Poet Laureate Program
  • Youth and the Future of Culture
    July 2–7, 2025

    About fifty-two percent of the world’s population is under thirty, the highest in recorded history. Young people around the globe are working across generations and communities to understand and shape the world they will inherit. At the 2025 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Youth and the Future of Culture highlights their stories, creativity, and aspirations.

    From media production to traditional building trades, from Indigenous language reclamation to lowrider-car innovations, and more, Festival participants will express who they are in the present with an eye toward a vibrant, sustainable future.

Festival 101

  • The Smithsonian Folklife Festival, established in 1967, honors contemporary living cultural traditions and celebrates those who practice and sustain them. Produced annually by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Festival has featured participants from all fifty states and more than a hundred countries.

    Our Festival takes place every summer on the National Mall, with free performances, workshops, demonstrations, and other activities. It is an educational, research-based presentation that features master artisans and other tradition bearers. We invite visitors to sing and dance along, try crafts and games, learn traditional recipes, ask questions, and take part in this unique cultural exchange.

Featured Video

Past Programs
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In the summer of 1976, our Festival celebrated the nation’s 200th anniversary with twelve weeks of programming on the National Mall. More than 5,000 participants and some 4.5 million visitors took part in the Bicentennial festivities. Beyond the Mall, this landmark event inspired folk arts programs and festivals across the country—many of which continue to serve Americans today.

  • A group of people in white and black outfits dance down the stairs of stadium-style seating, with people seated on either side watching.
    1976 Festival
    Old Ways in the New World

    This Bicentennial program served as a kind of family reunion, bringing together the children of immigrants to the United States from various parts of the world and their cultural cousins who stayed at home.

  • A person hand-sews a red and white quilt outdoors, with three people watching closely.
    1976 Festival
    Regional America

    During the two-month Festival, each week featured a different region of the United States, gathering artisans and families to demonstrate the arts and skills that characterized their hometowns.

  • Close-up on a pair of hands carving a piece of wood with a metal tool.
    1976 Festival
    Working Americans

    From horseshoe makers to decorative ice carvers, newspaper printers to long-haul truckers, this program presented the occupational cultures of a broad range of broad range of unions and professional organizations.

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