The 81st National Folk Festival announced the Maryland Traditions Folklife Area & Stage program, sharing details about the performers, craftspeople, and demonstrators who will be featured in this …
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The 81st National Folk Festival announced the Maryland Traditions Folklife Area & Stage program, sharing details about the performers, craftspeople, and demonstrators who will be featured in this special area of the festival in 2022.
The National Folk Festival is returning to Downtown Salisbury on a new weekend, Aug. 26-28, 2022, for the final year of the event’s residency on Maryland’s historic Eastern Shore.
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. These occupations allow individuals to earn a living and express their identity while contributing to the state’s economy and heritage. Traditions of work take many forms, whether drawing on family heritage to launch entrepreneurial ventures, volunteering skills as community service, or “working it" through creativity and ingenuity. Maryland at Work presents but a snapshot of the ever-changing ways Marylanders work.
“Supporting the National Folk Festival to showcase Maryland folklife and living cultural traditions has been an immense success for Maryland Traditions and the Maryland State Arts Council, and an important opportunity to reach our constituents on the Eastern Shore. As we enter the final year in Salisbury for the festival, Maryland at Work is a fitting theme. What better way to celebrate the resiliency of Maryland residents during the past few years than to honor the incredibly rich, always changing traditions of work in the state?” said Chad Buterbaugh, Senior Program Director at the Maryland State Arts Council.
“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.
The Maryland Traditions Folklife Area & Stage is produced in collaboration with Maryland Traditions, the traditional arts program of the Maryland State Arts Council.
The Maryland at Work program will feature:
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.
For more information on the Maryland Folklife Area program, visit: NationalFolkFestival.com.