Public programs from the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Upcoming events
Lindsborg Folksdanslag
Emporia Public Library Emporia, KS · Emporia Public Library Emporia, KS
1:30 p.m. CT Lindsborg, Kansas, is known for its strong Swedish heritage and the remarkable ways these traditions are being passed down to the next generation. The Lindsborg Folkdanslag is no exception. This group of folk dancers will demonstrate lively variations of the polska, waltz, polka, and engelkas and invite the audience to join. They will perform in handmade costumes—some handed down from early ancestors—and can share those stories too.
This Land Is... Sunday Supper and Conversation Series
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA · The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA
5–6:30 p.m. PT The Huntington’s “This Land Is ...” initiative invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land, drawing from library, art, and botanical collections to spotlight relationships between place, U.S. history, and American identities. A series of four “Sunday Suppers” focuses on particular Los Angeles neighborhoods, diaspora communities, and native ingredients.
Traditions in Dialogue: Indigenous Pacific Northwest Weaving
Washington State History Museum Tacoma, WA · Washington State History Museum Tacoma, WA
2–4 p.m. PT Weaving is a foundational art form among Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest, both connecting tribes through shared traditions and expressing each tribe’s distinct practices. This program brings together six artists representing multiple Tribal Nations to discuss their work, materials, and the meaning of each woven piece. Participating weavers are alumni of the Heritage Arts Apprenticeship program, where they spent a year training with master weavers. Together, they will share insights into techniques such as cedar bark and Raven’s Tail wool weaving, while reflecting on the intergenerational knowledge and community that sustain these traditions.
Woodland Bowl Keshena, WI · Woodland Bowl Keshena, WI
A revived tradition of the Menominee Nation, the annual Menominee Pageant is a show of pantomime, live music, and Native dance that marks the beginning of Menominee Powwow week each summer. Since the pageant’s renaissance in 2016, the College of Menominee Nation has imagined the event as an opportunity to engage performers and storytellers across generations, bridging heritage with contemporary theater practices and highlighting culture bearers of all ages.
Piconland: Conversation and Documentary Film Screening in Las Vegas
West Las Vegas Library Las Vegas, NV · West Las Vegas Library Las Vegas, NV
5:30–7 p.m. PT Learn more about the history and cultural significance of Nevada’s official state drink, the Picon Punch. Join Nevada Humanities for a free screening of the documentary film Piconland, followed by a conversation with director Mark Maynard and local panelists about Basque heritage and traditions in Nevada.
Piconland: Conversation and Documentary Film Screening in Boulder City
Boulder City Library Boulder City, NV · Boulder City Library Boulder City, NV
5:30–7 p.m. PT Learn more about the history and cultural significance of Nevada’s official state drink, the Picon Punch. Join Nevada Humanities for a free screening of the documentary film Piconland, followed by a conversation with director Mark Maynard and local panelists about Basque heritage and traditions in Nevada.
Traditions in Dialogue: Mongolian Folk Music and Iu-Mien Dance
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture Spokane, WA · Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture Spokane, WA
11 a.m.–12 p.m. PT Experience sound and movement that carry stories, cultural heritage, and identity through traditional Mongolian music and Iu-Mien dance. Join us for an engaging performance of traditional and contemporary music and dance and a conversation about traditions in transition. The program will showcase demonstrations by young artists and invite the public to engage in conversations about the complexities and strengths of the diverse traditions of America.
Levitt Pavilion Denver Denver, CO · Levitt Pavilion Denver Denver, CO
All My Relations Celebration is an annual music, dance, and art festival presented by the Levitt Pavilion Denver, in collaboration with Quiet Star Collective. Nominated for Indigenous TV’s “Outstanding Concert” award in 2024, the gathering stands at the heart of the movement to highlight Indigenous creatives, with programming that includes vendors, resource booths, performances from both upcoming and world-renowned Native artists, and a newly launched youth music camp in partnership with Rock the Rez.
New York Buddhist Church New York, NY · New York Buddhist Church New York, NY
In Japanese Buddhist tradition, Obon is an annual festival that honors the ancestors, typically celebrated with services, visits to the cemetery, lanterns, and folk dancing. This year, the New York Buddhist Church, established in 1938, brings its Obon back to 106th Street for a day of taiko drumming, origami crafting, and community remembrance.
Alaska Storytelling Fellows Reading & Story Circle
Virtual · Virtual
7–9 p.m. PT Join Alaska Humanities Forum for an evening of storytelling and connection! In the first half of the virtual event, you’ll hear excerpts from stories the 2026 FORUM Storytelling Fellows have been working on during the past six months. After that, we’ll guide participants through a simple Story Circle activity, where you will share a story of your own with a few other attendees, and hear others’ stories as well. No preparation or previous storytelling experience needed!
Washakie Museum & Cultural Center Worland, WY · Washakie Museum & Cultural Center Worland, WY
7–8 p.m. MT The documentary film Before Wyoming: The West in 1776 enlarges the narrative of 1776 America, looking beyond the eastern seaboard to the vast interior of the continent, where another story of dramatic upheaval was unfolding. The film explores the overlooked history of the American West during the Revolutionary era: a time when this vast region between the coasts was little more than a dreamscape for European and American expansion, sight unseen.
Lackawanna Plaza Montclair, NJ · Lackawanna Plaza Montclair, NJ
The Montclair Jazz Festival was created by Jazz House Kids to reflect its mission of using jazz as a tool for education, mentorship, and community connection. As a nonprofit dedicated to teaching young people through the traditions and culture of jazz, the organization launched the festival in 2010 to share that spirit with a wider audience. Today, it has grown into the largest outdoor summer jazz festival in the New York metropolitan area—celebrating the living legacy of jazz while inspiring and uplifting the next generation of artists.
Chautauqua Lecture Series: The Importance of Gathering
Chautauqua Amphitheater Chautauqua, NY · Chautauqua Amphitheater Chautauqua, NY
Chautauqua Institution is a nonprofit destination where ideas, creativity and lifelong learning come together during a nine-week summer season. For more than 150 years, it has brought people together on the shores of Chautauqua Lake to explore the best in human values through the arts, education, religion, and recreation. Described by Theodore Roosevelt as “America at its best,” Chautauqua continues to reflect and renew the nation’s cultural and civic life through dialogue, artistic expression and community.During this week, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Chautauqua investigates and celebrates togetherness as a critical component of what it means to be human.
Mother African Union Church Wilmington, DE · Mother African Union Church Wilmington, DE
First celebrated over two centuries ago, the August Quarterly Festival—also known as the “Big Quarterly,” or the “Independence Day” of Delaware—commemorates the founding of the first African American Union Methodist Church by Peter Spencer in 1813. Today, the annual festivities continue to be hosted by Mother African Union Church in Wilmington, Delaware, and include music, dance, food, health awareness initiatives, and educational programming. The celebration honors religious freedom for all people, recognizing in particular the enduring struggle for freedom and dignity among African Americans across the United States.
Derived from a 1950s Labor Day picnic tradition and fife player Othar Turner’s 1998 album, Everybody Hollerin’ Goat, G.O.A.T. Picnic today is a free, annual music festival that takes place in Coldwater, Mississippi. Fresh from its seventy-fifth anniversary, the gathering continues to honor its mission to foster good neighborhood, highlight the best of Hill Country blues, and pay homage over Mississippi-style goat cuisine.
Levitt at the Falls Sioux Falls, South Dakota · Levitt at the Falls Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Mitakuye Owas’iƞ * All My Relatives * Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ Festival is a free, multigenerational celebration of Indigenous performance, design, and community that takes place every summer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Presented by Levitt at the Falls and the Wokini Initiative at South Dakota State University, All My Relatives explores the ancestral and innovative cultures of the region’s Native diaspora, rooting its programming in family-friendly, interactive activities.
Caribbean Summerfest (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Marygrove College Detroit, MI · Marygrove College Detroit, MI
5:30–10 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Luciano, Universal Xpression, Vibrations. Presented in partnership with Caribbean Cultural and Carnival Organization (CCCO).
Burning Man is a thriving worldwide community of artists, makers, and community organizers, guided by the “10 Principles,” with events happening all over the globe. Burning Man spawned from Black Rock City, the annual Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert. Black Rock City is an annual experiment in temporary community dedicated to radical self-expression and radical self-reliance. Image Credit: World Fair of Unity by Mark Rivera, 2025 (photo by Jamen Percy)
This Land Is... Sunday Supper and Conversation Series
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA · The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA
5–6:30 p.m. PT The Huntington’s “This Land Is ...” initiative invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land, drawing from library, art, and botanical collections to spotlight relationships between place, U.S. history, and American identities. A series of four “Sunday Suppers” focuses on particular Los Angeles neighborhoods, diaspora communities, and native ingredients.
Winnebago Community Historical Society Winnebago, IL · Winnebago Community Historical Society Winnebago, IL
6:30–7:30 p.m. CT Historical objects enrich our understanding of and connection to the past. In commemoration of America 250, this program takes a look at Illinois history through the lens of ten objects from the collection of the Illinois State Museum. Each of these objects sheds light on the experiences of the people who used them against the backdrop of different times in Illinois history. Attendees are encouraged to bring an object (or photo of an object) of personal or family significance. At the end of the presentation, attendees will be invited to give voice to their own family and personal stories by sharing the stories associated with these objects.
Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater Virginia Beach, VA · Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater Virginia Beach, VA
Each year, Farm Aid artists and board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Margo Price and Nathaniel Rateliff host an annual festival to raise funds to support Farm Aid’s work with family farmers and to inspire people to choose family farm food. Since 1985, Farm Aid, with the support of the artists who contribute their performances each year, has raised more than $90 million to support programs that help farmers thrive, expand the reach of the Good Food Movement, take action to change the dominant system of industrial agriculture and promote food from family farms.
Chinatown Philadelphia, PA · Chinatown Philadelphia, PA
The Mid-Autumn Festival dates back thousands of years as a seasonal celebration in several Asian cultures, focused on families and communities gathering to celebrate abundance under the Harvest Moon. In the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Asian Americans United hosts an annual street festival with programming that includes lion dances, Korean drumming, folktale-based games, arts activities, and much more.
Pan-Asian Cultural Celebration (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Detroit Shipping Company Detroit, MI · Detroit Shipping Company Detroit, MI
2–4:30 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Madame XD (Xiao Dong Wei), Taiwan Acrobats Troupe, Great Lakes Taiko Ensemble. Presented in partnership with the Pan-Asian Cultural Celebration International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit.
The Great Valley Gathering is a free, three-day public event celebrating the living traditions, music, dance, storytelling, craft, and foodways that shape California’s Central Valley. Produced by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and rooted in the region’s rich agricultural history, the festival highlights a broad range of cherished expressions from diverse communities—Indigenous, immigrant, occupational, sacred, and more.
This Land Is... Sunday Supper and Conversation Series
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA · The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens San Marino, CA
5–6:30 p.m. PT The Huntington’s “This Land Is ...” initiative invites visitors to reflect on the American story through the lens of land, drawing from library, art, and botanical collections to spotlight relationships between place, U.S. history, and American identities. A series of four “Sunday Suppers” focuses on particular Los Angeles neighborhoods, diaspora communities, and native ingredients.
Girard Park Lafayette, LA · Girard Park Lafayette, LA
Festivals Acadiens et Créoles has its roots in the cultural revival movements of the 1970s, uniting three gatherings founded to celebrate the music, foodways, and craft traditions of South Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole communities. More than fifty years later, the festival has grown into one of the largest free public events in Louisiana, expanding to include a symposium, a road race, and a wide range of cultural programming. It endures as a vibrant act of cultural “self-celebration,” honoring the distinct yet intertwined traditions of Cajun and Creole Louisiana while encouraging both preservation and innovation in music, craft, and foodways.
Morgan State University Baltimore, MD · Morgan State University Baltimore, MD
For Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), homecoming represents more than sport rivalries; it is a celebration of history, tradition, and resilience. Each year, parades, concerts, competitions, football game days, and other activities bring scores of alumni and students together to reaffirm commitments and create new memories. Drawing from the theme “Morgan Pride: Making Memories. Leaving Legacies,” the 2026 Morgan State University homecoming creates a space for the Morgan community to continue that legacy of pride and joy.
Since 1974, Tucson Meet Yourself has invited artists, performers, home cooks, and other culture bearers from across the Arizona-Sonora region to demonstrate their heritage and the practices they pass from generation to generation. The signature public program of the Southwest Folklife Alliance, Tucson Meet Yourself proudly celebrates and interrogates the meaning of folklife, tradition, and community, transforming downtown Tucson into a site of vibrant cultural exchange.
Elgin Area Historical Society & History Museum 360 Park St. Elgin, IL · Elgin Area Historical Society & History Museum 360 Park St. Elgin, IL
2–3 p.m. CT Join one of the foundational founding fathers in a discussion of what rights you hold most dear. Engage in civil debate about how our imperfect nation has endured, and how it might yet “be good and do good.” Share your American story with John Adams, an American whose family roots go back to 1632, the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Mayflower.
Italian American Heritage Month (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Macomb Center for Performing Arts Clinton Township, MI · Macomb Center for Performing Arts Clinton Township, MI
2–5 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Maestro Francesco Mamola and Alfonzo Brandi (guitarist). Presented in partnership with the N.O.I. Foundation (Nuovi Orizzonti Italiani).
Lower Manhattan New York, NY · Lower Manhattan New York, NY
The People’s Poetry Gathering, founded as a biennial event in 1999 by City Lore and Poets House, with Bowery Poetry joining soon after, assembles poets from New York City and beyond to pursue discourse, exchange, and cultural preservation through poetry. In 2026, the gathering returns to Lower Manhattan for the first time in twenty years. It will feature performances and workshops by an array of artists, including Indigenous, folk, youth, and literary poets and musicians, as well as collaborations with iconic venues and restaurants, free writing workshops, and a POEMobile initiative that will visit all five boroughs projecting poems onto walls and buildings alongside live readings and music.
Zion Episcopal Church Talbotton, GA · Zion Episcopal Church Talbotton, GA
A stunning example of rural Gothic architecture and Georgia’s centuries-old Episcopal infrastructure, Zion Church in Talbotton has stood at the heart of the state’s historical and cultural preservation efforts for many years. Its annual Talbotton Blues Festival is one of the many fundraising and culture-sustaining events produced by Zion Church Restoration, Inc. and the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and features local artisans, cooks, and blues musicians.
The largest and longest-running event of its kind, Exposure is an annual festival, fundraiser, competition, and skate clinic in Encinitas, California, that champions the growing and dynamic universe of women’s skateboarding. Exposure Skate brings together world-renowned skateboarding legends, rising stars, and young aspiring athletes to activate their mission of empowering women and girls in the skateboarding community through service, mindfulness, and compassion.
Self Help Graphics & Art Los Angeles, CA · Self Help Graphics & Art Los Angeles, CA
A cornerstone of the public art movement, Self Help Graphics & Art is home to one of the nation’s longest-running celebrations of Día de los Muertos, a pillar of Mexican, Indigenous, and Mexican American heritage that honors and commemorates ancestors and those who have passed. Each year, weeks of seasonal arts workshops culminate in a one-day festival complete with a procession, traditional Aztec dance, public altars, vendors, music, and more.
Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Louisville, KY · Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Louisville, KY
Marking its thirtieth year in 2026, the Festival of Faiths brings spiritual and religious leaders, scholars, artists and creative thinkers together for two days of dialogue on pressing social issues. As the preeminent interfaith event in Louisville, Kentucky, the Festival of Faiths highlights the diversity of faith traditions, and their interconnections, in Louisville and beyond. The Festival of Faiths is produced by the Center for Interfaith Relations and is recognized nationally as a model for interfaith work.
Founded in 1934, the National Folk Festival is the longest-running multicultural celebration of the traditional arts in the United States. The flagship program of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, this traveling festival celebrates the artistic traditions of all Americans and honors the nation’s finest traditional artists. In residence in Jackson, Mississippi, from 2025 to 2027, “the National” features over 300 artists on six stages, nonstop music and dance, parades, a Mississippi folklife area, a family area, regional and international cuisine, and a crafts marketplace.
Still We Sing (Concert of Colors Neighborhood Program)
Ford Community & Performing Arts Center Dearborn, MI · Ford Community & Performing Arts Center Dearborn, MI
7–10 pm ET Through collaborations with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and community-based organizations across Metro Detroit, the Concert of Colors will host a series of free neighborhood events celebrating the cultural traditions that have helped shape our nation. Together, these programs remind us that the journey toward a more perfect union begins with listening, sharing, and creating solutions together. Featured artists: Omar Offendum, Lubana Al Quntar, Rewa Zeinati. Presented in partnership with the Arab American National Museum.