Sponsored by KNKX. The 55th Annual Northwest Folklife Festival will include programming that includes music, dance, spoken word, visual arts, films, participatory dances, and workshops spanning over 20 stages for an anticipated audience of over 200,000. This year's Cultural Focus is Ubuntu which translates to “I am because we are." Ubuntu is about belonging. That we belong to each other because our personhood is connected to the personhood of someone else. Our humanity is rooted in the relationships that we hold with people. People that we have both met and not met–consciously, subconsciously, and unconsciously. It is a testament to the undeniable fact that we are tethered to each other, whether we know them or not. That an action or an encounter can have a ripple effect on our immediate time and place, as well as somewhere halfway across the world.

As the last part of Northwest Folklife's series, Ubuntu also underscores the journey that people take to reach that co-existence. Ubuntu is the result of an audacity to believe that we are part of something bigger than just ourselves. Change, balance, passion, and purpose are all lessons towards an endgame that is both simpler and more complex that we ever imagined. That FOLK is where it starts and where it ends.

KNKX presents the new Jam Tent all weekend long. Stop by our booth there on Sunday, May 24 from 11 to 8 p.m. Also on Sunday, KNKX presents a music showcase from 3:30-5 p.m. on the Mural Stage featuring Miss Minami and Jessica Lurie hosted by KNKX's Abe Beeson. Get more information about Northwest Folklife here.