Classroom lesson · Festival · 🇸🇰 Slovakia

Východná Folk Festival

Slovakia's biggest celebration of folk music and dance

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The Východná Folk Festival is Slovakia's biggest celebration of folk music, dance and tradition. It takes place every July in a small village called Východná, in the foothills of the Tatras. Thousands of dancers, musicians and visitors come together in colourful costumes for four days of music, food and joy.

Tell me more

The festival has been going since 1953, which makes it more than 70 years old. It started as a small village celebration and grew until it became the most important folk event in the country. Every year, groups from across Slovakia bring their regional songs, dances and traditional clothes. Each group has its own unique style.

The site is a wooden amphitheatre built right into the hillside, so the audience sits on the grass while the dancers perform below. As the sun goes down, lanterns are lit, and dancing carries on into the evening. Some performances bring whole flocks of sheep onto the stage to recreate village life.

Visitors can also try the food. Big pots simmer with kapustnica, halušky and grilled sausages. Stalls sell wooden whistles, embroidered shirts, painted Easter eggs, and little glass figures. Children can have a go at folk crafts - making corn dolls, weaving small baskets, or painting pottery.

The festival also welcomes folk dancers from other countries. Visitors from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and beyond come to share their own dances. By the end of the weekend the stages have hosted music from across Europe, all under one big sky in the Slovak countryside.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might it be exciting to see folk costumes from many different regions in one place?
  2. 02If your school held a 'class folk festival', what dance, song or food would you contribute?
  3. 03Lots of festivals invite groups from other countries. What is one thing your culture might share at a festival like that?
Try this

Classroom activity

Each pupil designs their own 'class folk costume' on paper - one part should represent their family or where they're from, another part should represent the school. Pin them up around the classroom for a paper folk festival.