WASHINGTON (WUSA9) – With the heat wave coming to a halt, it’s time to get back outside and enjoy the summer sun before temps come crawling back up again! Here are our top three picks for FREE things to do in the DMV this weekend: Smithsonian Folklife Festival – Washington, D.C.

This two week-long festival is wrapping up this weekend on the National Mall. The festival highlights cultural creativity from Armenia and Catalonia, and features a collaboration with Roadwork for the 40th Anniversary Sisterfire concert, which will take place this Saturday and Sunday. The Folklife festival runs from 11:30AM to 6:00PM and includes craft exhibits, music and dance performances, cooking demos, and so much more.

The women’s festival Sisterfire debuted in 1982 at Takoma Park Junior High School as a fundraiser for Roadwork, a multiracial women’s arts organization that worked to foster cross-cultural connections between communities. From the very start, Sisterfire showcased an array of female artists with an emphasis on women of color, performers like Sweet Honey in the Rock and other musical activists who tackled social justice issues both local and global.

Through displays, discussions, and performances, the festival showcases two diverse cultures.

“I’m surprised at how even the stories that are quote-unquote foreign stories…are still very American stories,” Sabrina Lynn Motley says. Take the 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and its programmatic focus on the rich cultural traditions of Armenia, the post-Soviet state that can be seen as both foreign and faraway.

This year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival, opening Wednesday, focuses on Armenia and the Spanish region of Catalonia. Here’s a look at what to expect.
National Mall between 12th and 14th streets; Wed. through July 1 & July 4-8, various times, free.