The National Folk Festival is returning to Downtown Salisbury on a new weekend, August 26-28, 2022, for the final year of the event’s residency on Maryland’s historic Eastern Shore.
The 81st National Folk Festival will feature approximately 350 musicians, dancers, puppeteers, storytellers, and crafts demonstrators, continuous performances on multiple outdoor stages, the Maryland Traditions Folklife Area & Stage, a participatory dance pavilion, a Family Area, a Festival Marketplace, and regional and ethnic foods. The three-day festival is FREE to the public.
The Maryland Traditions Folklife Area & Stage celebrates and showcases the rich, living traditions that create identity and sense of place in communities across the state. With a different theme each year, the Folklife Area will shine a spotlight on the distinctive music, rituals, crafts, occupations, foodways, and other traditions at the heart of Maryland heritage. Performances, demonstrations, displays, exhibits, and narrative presentations by Maryland masters will express both the state’s deep history and its evolving character.
In 2022, Maryland folklife is celebrated in a special program entitled Maryland at Work. Supported by Maryland Traditions, the traditional arts program of the Maryland State Arts Council, Maryland at Work will explore the state’s cultures and traditions of work. The East Coast’s most diverse state according to the 2020 census, Maryland is home to an array of trades, industries, crafts, and professions—from agriculture in the Appalachians to textiles in Baltimore to the Eastern Shore’s maritime and tourism industries.
“Stretching from the Appalachian Mountains in the west across the Baltimore-Washington Corridor and to the Atlantic Ocean, the geography and history of Maryland has fostered distinctive trades, crafts, and professions. Many of these are iconic—they symbolize the state’s identity and heritage. The National Folk Festival is proud to lift up the contributions of these and other communities of work through the Maryland at Work program at this year’s festival, a perfect tribute as we all try to get back to work in our own lives,” said National Council for the Traditional Arts Executive Director Lora Bottinelli.
For more information on the 81st National Folk Festival visit NationalFolkFestival.com.
ARTIST & DEMONSTRATOR BIOS, IMAGES, AND VIDEO AVAILABLE AT: nationalfolkfestival.com/folklife
