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• Elliana Grace from Circus Harmony showed off her skills on the lyra in the Arts and Industries Rotunda.
  Photo by Maribel Rodriguez, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Sarah Chapman kicked off the Cookhouse with a hearty breakfast of chocolate waffles and a California fruit salad.
  Photo by Daniel Martinez, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Visitors danced along during a one-day-only presentation of festival dance traditions by the DC Caribbean Collective.
  Photo by Josh Weilepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Actors from Happenstance Theater took a stroll down the National Mall between shows.
  Photo by Daniel Martinez, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Circus Harmony’s best acrobats performed at the Ralph Rinzler Stage, exhibiting the strength, agility, cooperation, and extreme trust that goes into each act.
  Photo by Maribel Rodriguez, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Young visitors got to create their own finger puppets in the Circus Science tent, a souvenir of the breadth of circus arts.
  Photo by Daniel Martinez, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Visitors contributed to the artwork on the Mural Truck, drawing stickers depicting who they are and where they came from.
  Photo by Josh Weilepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• A member of the Hebei Golden Eagle Acrobatic Troupe was caught stretching before a performance in the Open-Air Ring.
  Photo by Vivianne Peckham, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Clown Robin Eurich helps a young visitor master the art of hula hooping.
  Photo by Vivianne Peckham, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
• Music and costumes flowed during a Caribbean celebratory dance presentation by Haitian dancer Vanessa Eugene.
  Photo by Vivianne Peckham, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives

Click on the image above to open full slideshow.

The first weekend of the Folklife Festival came to a close today, welcoming members of the Caribbean community in Washington, D.C., to the On the Move program and a full house for each performance in the Circus Arts Big Top. Take a look through our photography team’s best shots from today, and add your own to our Flickr group.

The Festival continues through Monday and Tuesday, getting an early start on Independence Day activities on the National Mall. Tomorrow you can watch a match of Chinese American 9-Man Volleyball, meet circus painter Karen E. Gersch in the Marketplace, and hear Hawaiian slack-key guitar and ukulele player Ledward Kaapana—among eighty-one other sessions! See the full schedule.

Elisa Hough is the editor for the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.