Mission Statement
Northwest Folklife creates opportunities for individuals and communities of
the Pacific Northwest
to celebrate, share and sustain the vitality of folk, ethnic and traditional arts
for present and future generations.
Northwest Folklife carries out its mission in a variety of ways,
most notably through the annual production of the free Northwest Folklife Festival.
Core Values
- Northwest Folklife believes the arts revitalize people and communities, and is dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage and its continued growth and development.
- Northwest Folklife understands that everyone is a bearer of folk arts and that it is as important to participate in the arts as it is to observe them.
- Northwest Folklife encourages communities to share their cultural arts, believing that interaction with new audiences enriches the community as much as the audience. When people share aspects of their culture, opportunities are created to dissolve misunderstandings, break down stereotypes and increase respect for one another.
- Northwest Folklife relies on the diverse communities of the Pacific Northwest to inspire programs and collaborates with these communities to develop public presentations of their culture.
The Northwest Folklife Story
Every year since 1972, the Northwest Folklife Festival has brought a celebration of diversity and tradition to the heart of the city. The Folklife Festival exists to celebrate all forms of cultural expression practiced in the Northwest. There are no headliners and all of the performers play for free. This allows Festival organizers to keep the event free to all who attend, asking instead for donations to cover basic operational costs.
The Folklife Festival has stimulated interest and activity in traditional arts in the Northwest. In 1999, Northwest Folklife was selected as a Local Legacy by the Library of Congress in celebration of the Library of Congress' 200th Anniversary. The Festival has become a major focal point for many traditional and ethnic performing groups and communities in its forty years of existence. And in those forty years, the focus of the Festival has grown to reflect the ever growing number of communities that call the Northwest home. Featuring hip hop MCs, Irish cloggers, Middle Eastern dancers, bluegrass fiddlers, West African drummers, ska bands and more, Northwest Folklife has built an artistic outlet that so many look forward to each year.
The first Festival presented over 300 performers to an enthusiastic audience over Memorial Day weekend, and was hailed as a successful and needed addition to Northwest arts programs. Today, the four-day Festival attracts an audience of about 250,000 visitors and has over 6,000 volunteer performers and 800 volunteers. Visitors from all over the world come to Seattle Center to take part in the weekend's activities, but the focus remains local--all performers hail from communities in the Northwest. The Folklife Festival is a truly Northwest experience, our diversity and our commonality told through music and dance.
For more information on how Northwest Folklife began, click here.
