Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 6, 1 June 2012 — Smithsonian Folklife Festival returns to National Mall [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Smithsonian Folklife Festival returns to National Mall

This year the University of Hawai'i will be participating in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

I that is held annually on the I Nahonal Mall in Washington, D.C. The festival takes plaee for two weeks every summer overlapping the Fourth of July holiday. This year it will be held from June 27 to July 1 and July 4 to 8. The outdoor festival is free to the public and attracts more than one million visitors yearly. The largest annual cultural event in the United States eapital, the celebration hosts a variety of exhibits, programs and food. The festival is usually divided into programs featuring a nation, region,

state or theme. The festival has featured more than 90 nations from every region of the United States, scores of ethnic coimnunities, more than 100 American Indian groups, and some 70 different occupations. This year's festival features programs on "Citified," "Creativity and Crisis" and "Campus and Coimnunity." "Citified: Arts and Creativity East of the Anacostia River" examines the creativity and identity of the Far Southeast Washington, D.C., neighborhoods. It will highlight the connections among residents of urban communities as expressed through arts and creativity. "Citified" alludes to the fact that many African American residents living east of the Anacostia River have parents or grandparents who migrated from the rural South and continue to maintain their southern heritage. "Citified" also refers to the ongoing transition from cultural and performance traditions shaped primarily by southern rural agricultural environments to those shaped primarily by wage work in urban industrial environments. "Creativity and Crisis: Unfolding the AIDS Memorial Quilt" is the first festival program to focus exclusively on coimnunity craft and performanee that were directly developed in response to crisis and grief. This is the 25th anniversary

of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. This program will commemorate the innovative and resourceful ways throuah whieh communities

have endeavored to educate people and to help them eope with one of the most complex epidemics in modern history. The quilt contains nearly 48,000 panels, and it has been viewed by more than 18 million people. It is as mueh a moving and monumental creative collaboration as it is a catalyst to remember, understand, educate and act. "Campus and Community" will commemorate the 1 5 0th anniversary of the founding of land-grant universities and the USDA. It will focus on the Morrill Act, whieh established the

land-grant universities . The Morrill Act provided a broad segment of the population with a practieal education that had direct relevance to their daily life; it made a college education possible for working-class Americans. The University of Hawai'i will be one of the 20 public land-grant universities featured in this program. The theme for the Hawai'i tent is "Hawai'i Papa o Ke Ao - Hawai 'i Foundation of Knowledgei ' The booth will feature the work that the university has done with the Native Hawaiian community. Hawai'i will be sending a 90-member delegation to Washington, D.C. Included in the delegation are heahh practitioners, mahi 'ai (farmers) and also a hula hālau led by kumu hula Taupori Tangaro, who is also a UH-Hilo and Hawai'i Community College faculty member. The delegation will offer exhibits, demonstrations and discussions on everything from Hawaiian heahh and healing, agriculture, organic eating, non-instrument navigation, language preservation and mueh more. Participation in the festival will further the efforts of UH to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture, language and practices. If you'rein the Washington, D.C., area, eheek out the festival and the University of Hawai'i delegation. ■

LEO 'ELELE V www.oha.org/kwo | kwo@OHA.org f NATIVE HAWAIIAN » NEWS | FEATURES | EVENTS

Editor's note: Beginning this issue, certain trustees' columns will not appear in Ka Wai Ola. In accordance with an Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees policy based on state ethics guidelines, any trustee running for re-election is suspended from publishing his or her regular eolumn until the elections are complete, except for those trustees running unopposed. As of press time, Trustees Haunani Apoliona and Robert Lindsey have filed nomination papers for re-election. As a result, their columns are suspended pending the outcome of the election.

Cūlette Y. Machade

ChairpErsūn, Trustee, Muluka'i and Lāna'i