American Indian Museum Partners With Embassy of Peru for Weekend Festival

A Peruvian festival will be held at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., July 28–30, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., complete with an art market, music and dance performances, hands-on activities for children, documentary screenings and Peruvian cuisine. “Kaypi, Perú” (“This Is Peru” in the indigenous Quechua language) highlights Peru’s rich and diverse cultural heritage and traditional arts. The festival is organized in collaboration with the Embassy of Peru and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru (MINCETUR).

The festival will feature live music and folk dances from Peruvian regions such as Festejo, Marinera Nortena and Valicha. Dance workshops for children will follow each performance. An art market will feature six of Peru’s most celebrated artisans from different Peruvian regions. The artists will exhibit their crafted workmanship, including jewelry, apparel, textiles, gourd carvings and sculptural works. Children will be able to create their own piece of art with the guidance of a Peruvian artist in the ImagiNATIONS Activity Center. Daily screenings of the documentary Q’eswachaka: The Last Inca Bridge will be shown in the Rasmuson Theater. The film reveals the detailed process that four Peruvian communities undergo annually to create the Q’eswachaka Bridge solely out of vegetal fibers; the Q’eswachaka is the last preserved suspension bridge in the Andes.  

Through photographs and objects, the exhibition “The Ese’Eja People of the Amazon: Connected by a Thread” describes the worldview, heritage and way of life of the Ese’Eja, stewards of their lands in the Amazon Basin for many generations, and raises the challenges they face as they try to shape their future.

The National Museum of the American Indian is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere—past, present and future—through partnership with Native people and others. Located on the National Mall at Fourth Street and Independence Avenue S.W., the museum is open each day from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). It is accessible from L’Enfant Plaza Metrorail station via the Maryland Avenue/Smithsonian Museums exit. Follow the museum via social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. To learn more about the museum’s mission, visit AmericanIndian.si.edu.

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SI-407-2017