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One of the things I value most about festivals, whether small and local or large and national, is their ability to be deeply rooted/connected to place while also helping us make sense of the wider world.
Like a story, a festival is a liminal experience. It can impact us, change us, and stay with us. It can challenge and reaffirm who we are and who we might yet become. Festivals may draw from local traditions and cultural expressions, and at the same time they become civic spaces, igniting hope & possibilities for the story we want to see in our world. They are powerful forms of participation, to gather and truly witness one another. I’ve learned this over many years from creating a multifaith peacebuilding festival in response to local and global tensions after 9/11, to neighborhood gatherings, overseeing America’s National Storytelling Festival, helping towns incubate new bridge-building festivals of their own. In all these spaces, I’ve witnessed people, young and old, political opposites, sit side by side, laugh, cry, and come alive together. Years ago, I saw an older woman holding a sign near the exit of a three-day Appalachian festival that read: “Remember this feeling and go spread some good in the world.” This past weekend, I was honored to serve as a convening facilitator through my Storytelling: Gift of Hope initiative as part of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage’s America 250 initiative, Culture: Of, By, and For the People, aligned with the Mother Tongue Film Festival. Together, we explored what collaboration and shared responsibility truly mean in telling community stories. As we closed the convening, I invited everyone to close their eyes, and remember the feeling they had collectively created, and to choose the feeling they wished to carry back in service to their communities and the world they imagine. I believe this act of imagining connects hope to the future story we long to create and pass on. Just one of the ways, I believe, we can spread some good in the world. 🌿 Graphic image photo by Jeff Tinsley- other photos shared by participants. #2026Folklife Grateful to my brilliant colleagues at Smithsonian Folklife, Leia Maahs & Rebecca Fenton (convening hosts), Ebony Bailey ( embedded researcher), Clifford Murphy, Sojin Kim, Michelle Banks, Andrea Mayorga, Annika Young, Halle Butvin, Karen Stark, Kirby Ewald, Elisa Hough, Taylor Russell, and new friends and weekend participants, Lawrence Carter-Long, Everett Osceola, Jacob Stebel, Hai-Li Kong, Hai-Yin Kong, Giacomo Francia , Gabriel Hernández-Solano, Alice Apley, Balam Toscano, Yolanda Cruz, Sam Cohn-Coisineau, Sign Up to Storytelling: Gift of Hope Newsletters & Blogs |
