North Carolina Folk Festival

The North Carolina Folk Festival (est. 2018) succeeded the National Folk Festival that was in residency for three years in Greensboro, N.C. from 2015 – 2017. Our organization is rooted in the ethos of inclusivity that created the National Folk Festival in 1934 as one of our nation’s first multicultural celebrations to present the arts of many nations, races, and languages on the same stage on an equal footing. We proudly carry forward this legacy to amplify the diverse voices of people and communities from all walks of life whose creative expressions are inextricably woven into the cultural fabric of our nation. Our Mission The North Carolina Folk Festival honors, celebrates, and shares the meaningful ways in which communities express their creativity and cultural traditions through music, dance, food, crafts and other folk arts to enhance appreciation of diverse traditions and contribute to community vibrancy and inclusivity. What is Folk? The term “folk” has come to mean different things over time. The most basic definition and origins of the word refer to “the people.” In the context of our work, the folk arts are the creative expressions of communities of people, and the ways in which their traditions are communicated and shared within (or about) their community. In the folk arts field, a community is as a grouping of people who are connected by a common ethnic heritage, cultural mores, language, religion, occupation, or geographic region. (as defined by the National Endowment for the Arts). We assign genres to the diverse cultural traditions we include in our Festival program each year as a way to begin to define and categorize them. We recognize that folk traditions and the public presentation of “folklore” are constantly changing and evolving. These genres are intended to serve as a reference point – a place around which we provide context and structure – that begins to share a story of connectivity between an artist’s work and his/her community of origin or practice.