Being invited to be guest nation at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2009 affords Wales a key opportunity to forge and celebrate links and partnerships between Wales and Washington DC across all sectors. Wales Smithsonian Cymru comprises Wales' presence at the Festival together with a broad ranging programme of activity across Washington DC during 2009 and beyond.
The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is an annual, cultural festival run by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, a research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Festival takes place outdoors on what is known as the National Mall in Washington DC, an area of open parkland that is flanked by Capitol Hill, the Washington Monument and many of the Smithsonian’s national museums. The Festival attracts over a million visitors during the course of ten days and is scheduled to coincide with 4 July national holidays. In summer 2009 the Festival will run from 24 – 28 June and 1 – 5 July.
The Festival offers a significant opportunity from which to raise the profile and awareness of Wales with a largely U.S. audience. The programme for the Festival will draw on the diversity of Wales’ cultural life, from the strength of deep-rooted traditions through to innovative new technologies. Over one hundred individual practitioners, performers and presenters from Wales will participate in the Festival.
A significant amount of research and consultation has contributed to the planning for the Festival, with researchers across Wales undertaking hundreds of hours of interviews with prospective participants. These records will be permanently housed in both the Smithsonian Institution archives and in national archives in Wales.
International Relations at the Welsh Assembly Government is supporting this initiative and coordinating Wales’ presence at the Festival in close collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution.
In addition, being guest nation at the Festival provides a platform from which to build an accompanying programme of activity and events in order to reach key audiences and to maximise benefits for Wales. As such, a broad ranging ancillary programme is being developed with many different partners in Wales and in Washington DC. Ancillary activity has already begun, with the commissioning of a cd of new recordings from musicians in Wales, and will run though 2009 and beyond.
The Festival and ancillary programmes together comprise Wales Smithsonian Cymru and it is anticipated that partnerships and interests built through this initiative will both contribute to Wales U.S. relations and stimulate new engagement.