Festival Blog

Wu Man, a virtuoso pipa player, concluded her performance at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival with a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the Chinese traditional lute.

Hailing from the mountainous region of southern China and Guizhou province,the Leishan Miao Music and Dance Group came to the Festival to perform a variety of simple and elaborate dances, as well as songs for voice and on the lusheng.

The Leishan Miao Music and Dance Group performs the Dance of the Golden Pheasant at the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

My high school offers an end-of-year program for graduating seniors, Senior Experience, during which we complete a three-week internship instead of going to the last three weeks of class.

We learn a lot through the stories we share. Whether they are in conversation with a Festival participant on the National Mall or on one of our many social media platforms

Founded in 1956, the Zhejiang Wu Opera Troupe both revives traditional works (some more than four hundred years old) and creates new ones.

Quetzal, a musical group from East Los Angeles, combines elements of Mexican música ranchera, salsa, Chicano rock, R&B, and international popular music.

Tian Yali, one of the paper-cutting artists from the Folklife Festival’s China program, brought her special recipe for dumplings to the Five Spice Kitchen.

The 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival was the greenest one to date, and represented the largest composting effort for any event on the National Mall.