Inuit dance near Nome, Alaska, in 1900

A folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music. This list includes folk festivals worldwide, except those with only a partial focus on folk music or arts. Folk festivals may also feature folk dance or ethnic foods.

Handicrafting has long been exhibited at such events and festival-like gatherings, as it has its roots in the rural crafts. Like folk art, handicraft output often has cultural, political, and/or religious significance. Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic, and is often sold at festivals by tradespeople or practicing amateurs.^[1] As at folk festivals, such art and handicraft may also appear at historical reenactments and events such as Renaissance fairs.

Asia

Europe

Dancers on the Europeade 2015 in Helsingborg in Sweden.

• Europeade (held each year in a different European country)

France

Festival Interceltique de Lorient

• Festival Interceltique de Lorient
• Rencontres Internationales de Luthiers et Maîtres-Sonneurs

Lithuania

Experimental neofolk act Rome performing on the Mėnuo Juodaragis Big stage in 2013

• Kaziuko mugė, Vilnius
• Mėnuo Juodaragis, Zarasai
• Parbėg laivelis, Klaipeda

Spain

The 2004 Interceltic Festival of Avilés in Asturias, Spain

• Interceltic Festival of Avilés
• Interceltic Festival of Morrazo
• Ortigueira's Festival of Celtic World

North America

Oceania

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Folk festivals.

Further reading

• Coffin, Tristam P.; Cohen, Hennig, (editors), Folklore in America; tales, songs, superstitions, proverbs, riddles, games, folk drama and folk festivals, Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, 1966. Selections from the Journal of American folklore. Cf. chapter on "Folk Drama and Folk Festival", pp. 195–225,