Empakasi Primary perform during this year's World Wildlife day celebrations |
The Festival takes place for two weeks every summer overlapping the Fourth of July holiday. It is an educational presentation that features community-based cultural exemplars. Free to the public, like other Smithsonian museums, each Festival typically draws more than one million visitors. The 2014 Festival programs will feature China the Tradition and the Art of Living, and Kenya Mambo Poa!
Today, Kenya is dynamic nation that links its prehistoric past to new cultural expressions in a land of great environmental contrasts. Kenya’s diverse landscapes—stretching from snow-capped mountains to the Great Rift Valley, from deserts to lakes, vast savannahs, lush forests, and a sparkling coast—are reflected in the rich diversity of the Kenyan people and their traditions. Kenya will be participating in the 2014 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, in USA.
The Folklife Festival (25 June - 6 July, 2014) provides an opportunity for the world to experience Kenya's rich and diverse culture. The 2 weeks long event will showcase all facets of Kenya through a number of activities namely the Kenyan culture, people, products, sports and business opportunities. Festival visitors will be able to interact with exemplary craftspeople who work with everything from clay to soapstone to recycled materials, learn about important fossil discoveries by taking part in a model dig site from the Great Rift Valley, run with Kenya's Olympic athletes, and dance to both traditional and contemporary music from many regions of the country. This program is produced in partnership with the Government of Kenya Ministry of Sports, Culture and the Arts.
National Museum of Kenya (NMK) main entrance. |
Initiated in 1967, the Festival has become a national and international model of a research-based presentation of contemporary living cultural traditions. Over the years, it has brought more than twenty-three thousand musicians, artists, performers, craftspeople, workers, cooks, storytellers, and others to Washington DC, to demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and aesthetics that embody the creative vitality of community-based traditions.
Festival visitors will be able to interact with exemplary craftspeople who work with everything from clay to soapstone to recycled materials, learn about important fossil discoveries by taking part in a model dig site from the Great Rift Valley, run with Kenya’s Olympic athletes, dance to both traditional and contemporary music from many regions of the country, discover how Kenyans live among and work with some of the most magnificent wildlife on the continent, and experience Kenyan life in the United States.
All of this will take place in venues and spaces that reflect the creative and dynamic experiences of the Kenyan people, whether they live in urban or rural, coastal or inland environments. Brand Kenya Board will also hold an investment conference and various forums with the Kenyans living in America to market Kenya as an investment destination.
Kenya Wildlife Service rangers on patrol in Amboseli National Park. |
Food and dance will comprise two of the expected highlights of the 2014 Festival program. Chapati (a flatbread similar to naan), ugali (a semi-hard flour cake), and nyama choma (roasted meats) are considered among the must-eats.
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