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  • 2025 Festival, Youth and the Future of Culture,

    Festival in Frame: Photos from Day Two

    July 3, 2025 | Elisa Hough | Comments
    On a patch of grass in front of a stage, pairs of two people have their arms linked and spin around in circles. In the foreground, an older man and younger girl dance together.

    No, it’s not square dancing—it’s contradance! Sugar in the Pan took to the Festival Main Stage to share some New England tunes with our visitors, and caller Adina Gordon joined them, leading the crowd in a few dances.

    Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

    “This is my home. This is my home. This is my home… I’ve got its pulse stuck in my palms. You see, here, we are the monuments, with cherry blossom hearts.”
    —Kenny Carroll, 2017 Washington, D.C., Youth Poet Laureate

    At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington, D.C., becomes the temporary home for artists and experts from across the nation: Vermont to Alaska, Southern California to Hawai‘i, and all the way to the territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. The cultural diversity of the United States is on full display here, with the next generation of young culture bearers leading the way. We capped the day with the “Homegrown Futures” concert, featuring young poets and musicians from our hometown.

    Scroll through for a few of our favorite photos from the day, and share your own photos on social media, using the hashtag #2025Folklife.

    A man wearing a backwards baseball cap, glasses, graphic tee, khaki shorts, long white socks, and sporting an arm cast doing a flip trick in midair; two other skateboarders, who are men, hang out on a brown ramp with a graffiti-decorated trailer in the background.
    Skaters tested their tricks at Streetwise’s Community Skateboarding Session, which offers people of all ages and skill levels an opportunity to connect, learn, and enjoy skateboarding in a supportive environment while jamming to music selections by DJ Gatite Gangster.
    Photo by Joshua Davis, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    A young person with bright blonde hair with pink streaks running through it smiles at the camera and gives two big thumbs up while holding paintbrushes. She wears a denim vest that is adorned with a variety of patches, pins, and buttons.
    Artist Leda Pelton joined us at the Festival for live mural painting on The Bathroom wall in the Museum of Contemporary American Teenagers area.
    Photo by Mark S. Roth, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    Low angle of a young boy, young girl, and man admire a red lowrider vehicle, which is propped to stand tilted, and on two wheels instead of all four.
    The Sacramento Academic and Vocational Academy displays a ’64 Chevy Impala that students transformed into a fully electric vehicle through hands-on learning, field trips, and support from local agencies who provided EV components.
    Photo by Stanley Turk, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    Three young girls stand side by side. From left to right, each is taller than the last. They wear Hawaiian leis and are demonstrating motions of the hula to an audience. Behind them on the mainstage, other members of their group, both old and young, stand and sing along to the sound of a ukelele being played by a woman who sings into a microphone.
    They grow up right before your eyes! The Hālau I Ka Leo Ola O Nā Mamo (School of the Living Voice of the Descendants) introduced a few hula (dances) and mele (songs) celebrating the legacy of Mary Kawena Pukui, including the hula “Ke Ao Nani,” a simple children’s hula that teaches about the world around us.
    Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    Three people work on at an outdoor cooking station, handling circles of dough that are then placed on a convex oven. A crowd of people watch from behind low gates.
    Chef Danny Dubbaneh, alongside parents Muna and Issa, cooked up the signature dish of their family business: manoushe, a Middle Eastern flatbread. Cooked atop a saj oven, it’s traditionally topped with za’atar and zayt (olive oil)—namesakes of their Z&Z Manoushe Bakery in Rockville.
    Photo by Ronald Villasante, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    Close-up on a person in a chef’s coat holds up an hourglass-shaped clear dish filled with chopped ingredients and topped with gold leaf. It matches their gold watch and buttons on the jacket.
    During an “Eats + Beats” session in the Foodways kitchen, KaTisha “Chef Tish” J. Smittick whipped up her shrimp and avocado salad with a touch of decadence: a gold-leaf garnish.
    Photo by Anna Beth Lee, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    A young girl with curved cornrows holds a microphone up to a woman with long dark hair and glasses. Behind them is a mural with the front of classic red car and a water tower that says Welcome to Sacramento.
    In a cross-Streetwise collaboration, skateboarder Demi Harper interviewed lowrider artist Cecelia Perez, who created the mural of iconic Sacramento structures in the background.
    Photo by Joshua Davis, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    A teenage girl and teenage boy sit behind a table covered with black cloth, which displays ARTxFM’s branding; a man in a gray Youth and the Future of Culture t-shirt and a woman in a blue dress sit at a cloth-covered table perpendicular to the other while the teenagers interview them; a WXOX sign flashes red to signal that the radio station is live; the background features other Festival participants and guests mingling among the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building hallways.
    Lila Hayden and Maxwell $ Selby (left to right), WXOX Next Wave Academy’s ART FM crew, broadcasting live Festival coverage from the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they’ll host a pop-up radio station each day of the Festival. Tune in on artxfm.com, or through the radio on WXOX 97.1 FM and WXND 100.9 FM if you’re in Louisville.
    Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
    A teenage girl and teenage boy sit behind a table covered with black cloth, which displays ARTxFM’s branding; a man in a gray Youth and the Future of Culture t-shirt and a woman in a blue dress sit at a cloth-covered table perpendicular to the other while the teenagers interview them; a WXOX sign flashes red to signal that the radio station is live; the background features other Festival participants and guests mingling among the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building hallways.
    Sosena Audain and other poets from Words Beats & Life, a local arts education nonprofit rooted in hip-hop, punctuated the evening concerts with moving verses about growing up and living in Washington, D.C.
    Photo by Anna Beth Lee, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

    Tomorrow, celebrate the Fourth of July Folklife style by hearing stories of “50 Stories from 50 States,” speaking a new language with Ionkwahronkha’onhatie as they teach introductory Kanien’kéha, watching a lowrider bike club turn frames into works of art, and so much more. Stay for “Roots and Voices: Americana Reimagined” in the early evening, followed by the fireworks just after 9 p.m.

    Elisa Hough is the editor and web content manager at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Media intern Cassie Roshu and social media specialist Grace Bowie contributed.

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