SHOW ARCHIVES

Public Benefit Show Archive
MAY 2025

May 23-26, 2025 - IKIGAI

Pronounced: Ee-kee-guy

Derived from the Japanese words "Iki" (life) and "Gai" (worth living), Ikigai invites us to embrace an intuitive journey, one that encourages us to navigate life’s complexities and, eventually, challenging us to find and embrace our true purpose, considering both intimate and social dimensions of life. It's about showing up authentically, trusting the process, and allowing your purpose to come into view, often when you least expect it. 

Ikigai helps foster a seasonal lifestyle. Recognizing the changes that occur in our lives and the ways that we maintain a rootedness in our purpose. Acknowledging the journey, not the destination. Finding resonance with presence versus the inclination or expectation to think steps ahead or wallow in steps before.

Our purpose isn’t just that we belong to each other, but that we can be responsible in nurturing another's purpose, as well. It is here that we can spark each other’s passions, creativity, and joie de vivre, so that we can enjoy and see the beauty in the sunset, or the melody, or the friend. 

Our partnership with Metier gives artists a 3-month residency to grow and expand their artistry. Our partnership with Union Arts Center gives audiences an opportunity to see how themes and ideas can be depicted in a multi-disciplinary context. Our festival includes programs that deepen folk arts relationship and connection to food and environmental justice. Folklife has the power to drive a civic narrative of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest that says You Are Welcome Here. Folklife is Everywhere. Folklife is Everyone. That is our purpose. That is our Ikigai.

What is your Ikigai?