Summer festival showing Georgian folk culture begins

Georgian citizens and country guests rejoice - an annual summer festival showcasing the best of Georgia's folk culture and traditions through music, art, martial arts and more is about to begin.

The country’s annual Art Gene Festival is kicking off in Georgia’s regions this weekend before ending in capital Tbilisi in July for a one-week outdoor celebration. At each venue aspects of Georgia’s traditional folk culture will be on show, aiming to present Georgia’s unique culture to guests while reminding locals’ of their roots and preserving the country’s ancient artistic traditions.

Georgian national dance performance at the Festival in 2012. Photo from Art Gene website.

The festival will be launched on June 28 at Simoneti village in Georgia’s western Imereti region, where famous writer David Kldiashvili was born. Over the following days and week the festival will move across the country before the final segment is held at the Open Air Ethnography Museum in Tbilisi on July 19-26.

Martial Art also is showcased at the Art Gene annual festival. Photo by Art Gene website.

Traditionally the outdoor festival offered demonstrations in martial arts, handicrafts, folk dance choreography, instrumental music, poetry and arts and crafts from various regions of Georgia.

This year minority groups and visitors from other regions of the Caucasus will be involved in the festival to make the event more diverse and multinational, said organisers. In this respect at the festival a wide variety of traditional art and crafts from Georgia and further afar will also be exhibited and sold.