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 |