Holiday Folk Fair International
The 70th annual Holiday Folk Fair International celebrates cultural communities through music, art, food and dance.
The Holiday Folk Fair International boasted its 70th annual return to the Wisconsin Expo Center this past weekend. Milwaukee should be honored and proud of this event, considering it’s the oldest and largest of its kind. This year’s theme was “Celebrate the Culture of Community”.
Al Durtka became involved 30+ years ago as a volunteer cleaning sinks for the food prep areas, and eventually worked his way up to become the Holiday Folk Fair director. His goal is to constantly search for communities within Milwaukee that are being underrepresented at the festival. This year, the most recent addition was a group of refugees from Burma.
Festival goers were not let down by a lack of entertainment. The event had 5 different stages that featured ethnic dancing, musical performances, craft demonstrations and activities for children. The largest of the stages, the All Nations Theater, featured over 20 cultural dance groups ranging from individuals to large ensembles.
Traditional handcrafts and goods were available for sale just in time for holiday shoppers, and there were enough food choices for even the most particular of palettes.
Photo Gallery
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I wasn’t able to go to the Folk Fair this year as I have for many, many years, and really appreciated your photos (my father sold items in the Ukrainian booth years ago, and I helped him, and was also in the Ukrainian Dance Group Dnipro
for a short time when I was younger). Thanks, TCD, for allowing me some memories and some present-day views of a wonderful event to which many more Milwaukeeans should come
annually!