The National Folk Festival is a chance to celebrate our country’s vast forms of traditional culture. In addition to music and dance, it is also an ideal way to experience a number of traditional games, crafts, storytelling and ethnic food. Just a sampling of what awaits this year’s visitors...
Listen:
63rd National Folk festival Sampler.
Musical Performers

Twenty diverse musical acts have been confirmed: (Festival Site Map with stage locations)

Last updated 07/01

Traditional Artists

Folk Arts Marketplace

Vendors invited to participate in the National Folk Festival’s "Folk Arts Marketplace" sell authentic traditional arts or related items rarely available in any stores or other festivals. Vendors include past participants in state and regional folklife festivals, apprenticeship and award programs, and other activities of the Smithsonian, Michigan State University Museum, and upper Midwest regional state-funded folk arts programs. (Festival Site Map)

Workshops

East Lansing Recreation and Arts will again sponsor crafts workshops this year for those looking for a more "hands-on" experience. And dance workshops, offered on three separate evenings prior to the festival, give people the chance to perfect some dance steps they can use under the dance tents each night at the National Folk Festival. For more information, please contact Julie Hartley, 517/353-4574.

Food

This year’s National Folk Festival will showcase the foods of various ethnic, religious, and regional groups in the Taste of Traditions Food Court. Special foods help to reinforce and maintain group and family identity and become the focus of celebrations, holidays, or rites of passage. Many foods at this summer’s festival were brought to the U.S. from other countries, and have been adapted through the generations to fit their new environment .

Taste of Traditions

TASTE OF TRADITIONS FOOD COURT
What we eat says a great deal about who we are and where we came from. Vendors invited to participate in the National Folk Festival’s "Taste of Traditions Food Court" offer traditional foods closely linked to their ethnicity or region (Festival Site Map):

Festival Fun For Kids!

The National Folk Festival is a chance for families to celebrate our country’s rich forms of traditional culture. In addition to music and dance, it is also an excellent opportunity to experience a number of traditional games, crafts, storytelling and food.

Children have a world of fun to explore in the Children’s Folk Activities Area...

CHILDREN’S FOLK ACTIVITIES AREA

At the National Folk Festival, in a program area coordinated by the Michigan State University Museum, children (and their adult companions) can participate in a variety of fun, participatory, and educational activities. Special features this year include Children's Folklore Workshops, Talkers and Tellers Program, a hands-on craft tent, a marble games tent, and inspiring performances by four groups of youth traditional dancers (see below descriptions). The Children's Folk Activities Area can be found on the far western side of the festival site in Valley Court Park and runs from noon - 6:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.(Festival Site Map).

Great Lakes, Great Quilts

GREAT LAKES, GREAT QUILTS PROGRAMS
At the 2001 National Folk Festival, a variety of quilt-related activities, coordinated by the Michigan State University Museum, will include (Festival Site Map):

  • A Meet the Artist/Great Lakes Quilters Save Our Stories area where, on a small stage and in front of an audience, quilters can share and have recorded the stories of their experiences. Quilters Save Our Stories is part of a national effort, in collaboration with The Alliance for American Quilts, to document the wonderful stories that have accompanied the tens of thousands of quilts made in this country.
  • A Children's Story Book Quilt area where members of The Quilt Guild of Metro Detroit who have made quilts illustrating children's books will read the stories and show their quilts.
  • A Quilt Care and First Aid area where festival visitors can view simple archival materials and conservation techniques for caring for and displaying their textiles at home. Members of the Piecemakers Guild of Saginaw will demonstrate quilt restoration techniques and give advice on home quilt care.
  • A Michigan Quilt Project Inventory area where quilters and quilt owners can register their quilts in the state quilt inventory and thereby join thousands of others across the country in helping to create and maintain a record of this wonderful artistic heritage.
  • In addition to all of the above, the Folk Arts Marketplace will feature for sale the work of Lula Williams of Detroit as well as the members of the Flint African American Quilt Guild. The nearby Children's Folk Arts Activity Center will also feature other hands-on activities for young children and their adult festival companions.

Traditional Games

Traditional games are played throughout the world, by individuals and groups of all ages, with formal or informal rules, and at homes, schools, work, and a variety of community settings.

Traditional games are most often learned by observing and participating in a game; teachers are most often a parent or other familiar adult, a sibling, or a friend.
Games play a critical role in fostering and maintaining ethnic and group identity, acquiring physical and intellectual skills, learning cultural knowledge, and developing and negotiating social relationships.

At this year's National Folk Festival, marbles and the traditional card games of cribbage and buck euchre are featured Many more games will be available in the Children's Folk Arts Festival section of the festival (Festival Site Map).