Festival Blog

What role does music play in your life? Is it for solitary enjoyment or social interaction? In this interview, music scholar Oliver Wang describes the social power of music to form connections

Learning the limitations of any particular stone is a skill that only comes from pushing the boundaries. Bernat Vidal, a stone carver from Basque country, has learned how to expertly read a stone, even characterize its personality.

Set beside the Sounds of California Stage & Plaza, La Cueva was a space for musicians to show their related crafts: mask making, instrument building, and whip braiding.

The Smithsonian Folklife Festival has taken on countless forms and meanings in its forty-nine years. At the 2016 Festival, we asked visitors, participants, and presenters for their own definition of the Festival.

Bakailaoa pil-pilean is perhaps the Basque country’s best known dish. The recipe itself is simple, but the dish is not easy to make.

Throughout our interview, she often referenced dreamlike interactions with magical figures, including a fairy who welcomed her to a treehouse deep in the woods.

Raymundo Guzmán, also known as MixteKo, is an artist based in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

Every time there was a rural sports demonstration at the Folklife Festival’s Frontoia, or Basque handball court, you could hear cheers of “aupa neskak!”—let’s go, girls!

George Abe is an energetic, enigmatic man. A Japanese American born and raised in California, he presented and performed as part of the Sounds of California program.