Northwest Folkife
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Cultural Focus

Northwest Folklife’s 2022 Cultural Focus, Metamorphosis: In with the Old, In with the New, celebrates people’s natural propensity for change. This year we explore themes of transition, transformation, and growth–themes central to the folk lineage and process.

2022 Cultural Focus – Metamorphosis: In with the Old, In with the New

Northwest Folklife’s 2022 Cultural Focus, Metamorphosis: In with the Old, In with the New, celebrates people’s natural propensity for change. This pandemic has proven to be one of those unique moments in our time; a turning point where we can point our compass true north, see the writing on the wall, and meet the challenges ahead.

A once-in-a-lifetime challenge offers us the opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime solution. It is in moments like these when emerging ideas, movements, and practices can become new conventions; when new thoughts branch from older ones, connecting us to our past, and propelling us to our future; where changing perspectives can be fostered, not feared, or ignored. In with the old, and in with the new!

​​This year’s cultural focus looks to our present, the urgency of now, and how that paves paths for our future. How do we translate the legacies and traditions of our fore-bearers and reflect them in our current selves, with our current identities, and our current conditions? How do we prepare and propel our current selves for the future we want to see? How is this unbroken circle reflected in the common good that exists in all cultures?


Previous Cultural Focus Programs

2021
50 Years of Northwest Folklife
2020
Living Legacies
2019
Youth Rising
2018
Echoes of Aztlán and Beyond: Mexican American and Chicana/o Roots in the Northwest
2017
Festál Turns 20
2016
The Power of the Human Voice through Song
2015
Beats, Rhymes and Rhythms: Traditional Roots of Today’s Branches
2014 India and its People
2013 Washington Works
2012 The Next Fifty: A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Seattle Center and Its Legacy
2011 Northwest Stories / Bulgarian Community Celebration
2010 Northwest Folklife is Community!
Thirteen groups that have become important to the Festival over the past 39 years (African American Gospel, All Ages, Bluegrass, Croatian, Filipino, FolkFloor Volunteers, Hungarian, Indian Dance, Jewish, New Old-Time, Northwest Folk Dancers, Inc., Ukrainian, Washington State Fiddle & Dance)
2009 The Centennial Celebration of the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, 1909-2009
2008 Urban Indians
Native Americans Living off the Reservation
2007 Borderlands
An exploration of the communities that lie on either side of the International Boundary between Washington State and British Columbia
2006 Arab Communities of the Pacific Northwest
2005 Generation to Generation: Passing on our Traditions
Masters artists and apprentices from Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington
2004 Traditions from the Horn of Africa
Communities from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti
2003 East Meets West: Maritime Culture of the Atlantic Northeast and the Pacific Northwest
2002 East Meets West: Forest and Woodlands Culture of the Atlantic Northeast and the Pacific Northwest
2001 Han Madang: Korean American Communities of the Pacific Northwest
2000 Carnival Arts of the Caribbean