Festival Blog

The Kenya: Mambo Poa program at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival invited two bead artists from Kenya: Susana Daniel Chemakwany and Susan Naserian Nketoria.

You only have to take a few bites of soda bread to see how it could have sustained a family of nine

The Inner Mongolian ensemble Ih Tsetsn won over crowds at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival with their complex harmonies and high-energy music. Here, they perform a traditional song of worship, or song ge, praising the land and nature.

Three and a half weeks after the Folklife Festival, there are still a few pieces to pick up. Participants settled back home in Kenya and China are starting to send in their feedback

It used to all depend on individual effort to promote Qiang embroidery, which was very difficult, but after the earthquake the government funded “help centers” for us to help teach women to embroider in order to make a living.

Amid the bustling crowds, impromptu Maasai dances, and rhythmic benga tunes that filled the Kenya: Mambo Poa site on the National Mall during the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Before beginning my internship with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, I could not have imagined what a chaotic, enlightening, exhausting and truly wonderful event the Folklife Festival would turn out to be.

In a 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival workshop, Kenyan musicians Makadem, Justo and Joseck Asikoye, and Singing Wells project advisor Bill Odidi discussed music as a controversial form of socio-political expression and communication.

The ingredients for this recipe come from 2014 Festival participant Fatma Ali Busaidy, whose traditional Swahili cooking from the east coast of Kenya frequently uses coconut milk, cardamom, and rice.