Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Mailing Address:
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Smithsonian Institution
P. O. Box 37012 MRC 520
Washington, DC 20013-7012 USA
Physical address:
Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Capital Gallery 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Suite 2001 MRC 520
Washington, DC 20024 USA
Phone: (01) 202-633-6440
Fax: (01) 202-633-6474
Email: folklife-info@si.edu

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is an international exposition of living cultural heritage annually produced outdoors on the National Mall of the United States in Washington, D.C., by the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The Festival takes place for two weeks every summer overlapping the Fourth of July holiday. It is an educational presentation that features community-based cultural exemplars. Free to the public, like other Smithsonian museums, each Festival typically draws more than one million visitors.

Initiated in 1967, the Festival has become a national and international model of a research-based presentation of contemporary living cultural traditions. Over the years, it has brought more than 23,000 musicians, artists, performers, craftspeople, workers, cooks, storytellers, and others to the National Mall to demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and aesthetics that embody the creative vitality of community-based traditions.

http://www.folklife.si.edu/