The celebration of folk art among Utah’s diverse communities was altered for 2020 and 2021, because of the pandemic.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Shon Taylor performs a fancy dance during an intertribal pow wow at the Living Traditions festival in Salt Lake City on Saturday, June 26, 2021. The festival will return to its regular schedule in 2022.
| Jan. 26, 2022, 9:00 p.m.
Salt Lake City’s Living Traditions Festival — where members of the state’s diverse ethnic and immigrant communities celebrate their food, music, dance and crafts — will return to its traditional three-day schedule in May.
The event will go to its regular format for the first time since 2019, the Salt Lake City Arts Council announced Wednesday. The festival has run modified and altered versions for the last two years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The three-day festival will take place May 20 to 22 in Washington Square and Liberty Square — where Salt Lake City Hall and the City Library’s main branch reside — in downtown Salt Lake City. The event brings together more than 90 different cultures, and hosts “events that foster community conversation around social justice, equity, and diversity” through presentation of folk art.
The festival is free to attend.
The Salt Lake City Arts Council this month received a grant of $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts, which will fund 1,248 projects across the country in 2022. NEA gave grants to seven projects from six arts groups in Utah; besides Living Traditions, the grants will go to Timpanogos Storytelling Institute, the Moab Music Festival, Craft Lake City, Repertory Dance Theatre and Spy Hop Productions.