Harvest Folk Festival

For more information and for the full schedule of events, please visit allencentennialgarden.wisc.edu/harvest-festival

Join us at the Allen Centennial Garden on Saturday, September 26, 2026 between 12pm and 6pm to celebrate an abundant and diverse harvest! We’ll have live music, dancing, and storytelling alongside opportunities to learn about different harvest traditions from Dejope (Madison) and around the world. Free and open to the public!

The Harvest Festival focuses on making emotional connections to plants as part of the Garden’s annual theme, Illuminate the Garden. There will be opportunities for creating with plants, a seed swap, and more hands-on activities.

The harvest festival’s song, dance, and food celebrates the ongoing Kitchen Garden project which highlights crops, cuisines, and cultures including Indigenous, Chinese, and African Diasporic.

The harvest festival also features student research that focuses on the importance of harvest festivals to communities across the globe.

This year’s guests will include:

Yusuf Bin-Rella – Madison chef and farmer

Lion Dancers – from the Zhong Yi Kung Fu Association in Madison

Elm Duo – Klezmer folk strings (https://elmduo.net/)

UW School of Bhangra – UW student dance group

Madison Rueda – UW and community student dance group

Tara Austin – Rosemaling artist

Mitch Frank – fiber artist using native plants

Midwest Linen Revival – demonstrating processing of flax for