Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival Opens on National Mall

The Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage kicks off the 2025 Folklife Festival “Youth and the Future of Culture” July 2 on the National Mall between Seventh and 12th streets. The six-day festival celebrates the many ways young people are shaping culture, community and creative traditions, and it is a forum for intergenerational exchange, with youth voices leading the conversation. 

Programs

All of the festival’s daytime and evening programs are free. A full schedule of activities is available online, and a sample of festival highlights is below:

• Screenings by young filmmakers and live radio broadcasts in the Emerging Media Makers area in the Arts and Industries Building

• Skate jams and skateboarding lessons, live mural painting, lessons in sidewalk astronomy and car detailing on lowrider cars and bikes in the Streetwise area

• Language lessons and activities at the Language Lodge in the Native Language Reclamation area

• Community and family-led workshops in Western crafts and skills like saddlery and beadwork, luthiery (building/repairing stringed instruments) and weaving in the Learning Together area

• Hands-on skill demonstrations in stone carving, carpentry, blacksmithing and ornamental plastering

• Percussion lessons, jam sessions and history of musical traditions like contradance, hip-hop, mariachi, classical and more in the Music Apprenticeship area

Family Activities

There are a variety of family-friendly performances and workshops, including daytime performances at the Festival Main Stage and in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Potomac Atrium, cattle-roping demonstrations in the Learning Together area, poetry workshops at the Wordsmiths’ Café, kids’ skate lessons in Streetwise (sign-up required) and media-making crafts in the Arts and Industries Building. A Family Activities area will include games, building blocks and prom-poster painting for the Saturday evening concert.

Evening Concerts

A series of concerts, including a prom, will take place in the late afternoon and evenings on the Festival Main stage and livestreamed online: 

• Thursday, July 3: Homegrown Futures: The Sound of D.C. – festival goers can celebrate local artists and their teachers with performances by DCPS Let’s Go-Go Band, the UNDC JAZZtet and spoken word.

• Friday, July 4: Roots and Voices: Americana Reimagined – three award-winning ensembles representing the variety of American music will perform Southern California mariachi, Hawaiian dance and chant, and Vermont contradance.

• Saturday, July 5: Prom in the Park – festival visitors can get dressed up and come dance to the sounds of school proms across the decades, with ’70s and ’80s classics by Stax Music Academy and the latest hits by young DJs out of Kentucky.

• Sunday, July 6: On Key: Next-Gen Music Ensembles and Community Contradance – festival visitors can experience the impact of music education programs with performances by the Mariachi Master Apprenticeship Program, the Alliance of Black Orchestral Percussionists and the DC Youth Orchestra Program.

Foodways Demonstrations and Concessions

Participants will share recipes passed down through their families and cultures in live cooking sessions throughout the day at the Foodways stage. From 5–5:30 p.m. each day, the Foodways stage will transform into a coffeeshop with poetry, live music by DJ Mojo and a tasting of orange blossom lemonade (as supplies lasts).

Food and drinks are available for purchase from 11 a.m. to closing. The main concession stand offers options that represent the locales of this year’s participants: New Orleans po’boys, California street tacos, Washington, D.C.’s half-smokes, Indonesian Sate Ayam (chicken skewer) and Bolivian sanduíche de Chola (beef sandwich).

Accessibility

The Smithsonian Accessibility Map marks accessibility features throughout the festival grounds, and sensory guides are available at the Accessibility tent. Accessible seating is available at all performance venues and dining areas. A limited number of wheelchairs (18- and 20-inch) are available for loan each day at the Accessibility tent.

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SI-154-2025