More than 30 different cultures will be represented at a two-and-a-half day learning extravaganza that aims to enlighten the mind as well as the tastebuds.

In it’s third year in existence, the “Festival of Iowa Folklife: Cultural Crossroads” will again make its presence known in Iowa June 15-17 in downtown Waterloo between the Grout Museum District and the Waterloo Center of the Arts. Activities will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday and end at 6 p.m. Sunday evening. Admission is free.

The festival activities will include traditional food, music, dance, crafts, stories and much more from surrounding regions.

“Come have a good time and come celebrate all the different people and cultures who call Iowa home and try something new,” says Billie Bailey, executive director of Waterloo’s Grout Museum of History and Science.

The “Festival of Iowa Folklife” began in 1996 during Iowa’s sesquicentennial celebration when the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. coincided its “National Folklife Festival” with Iowa’s “Folklife” festival.

The festival was originally held in Des Moines. Following the success of the first festival, Waterloo was chosen as this year’s site, after researching various locations for cultural diversity.

“Waterloo prides itself as having one of the most culturally diverse cities in Iowa,” says “Folklife” Logistic Coordinator Michelle Coleman.

Ron Steele, KWWL TV news anchor, will be kicking off the festival as the master of ceremonies.

Along with Steele, Governor Tom Vilsack and Mayor John Rooff will accompany various state legislators in the opening ceremonies. The senators and representatives will give a resolution, which has been written especially for the event, that will embrace the aspirations of the festival.

“Because this festival celebrates the diverse immigrant communities in Iowa, this is one event people can attend to really gain a broad sense of what Iowa is all about,” Coleman says.

One of the main features of the festival will be its variety of live folk music.

The featured musicians will include Paddy O’Brien and Chulrua, an internationally acclaimed Irish music trio from Minneapolis, Vatra, a high-energy Croatian tamburitza band from Milwaukee, and Des Moines’s Las Guitarras de Mexico, a southern Mexican guitar trio.

Other music will include African-American gospel, Balkan accordion, Czech polka, Lao flute, Native American courting flute and old time country and bluegrass.

Festival food will tantalize the tastebuds as it encompasses both making the food as well as eating it. There will be demonstrations from cooking lamb roast to preparing flat bread.

Traditional dancers will also be featured at the festival. Folk dancers from India and Italy, Mexican folk dancers, Natasinh national Lao dance troupe, Vietnamese dragon dancers and the Young Tai Dancers will all make appearances.

Along with dancers, representatives from diverse ethnicities will teach different cultural skills and games such as Amana quilting, tinsmithing and a Nuer board game called yhit.

The festival is for anybody interested in how traditions and cultures are passed on from generation to generation and for people who enjoy all different types of music and food, Bailey says.

The festival will return to Waterloo every third year, after it makes stops at Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“We’d like people to come out and experience all of the cultural diversity that Iowa has to offer and have them go home and realize that traditional culture, folklife, is a part of everyone’s everyday life,” says Riki Saltzman, festival director and folklife coordinator for the Iowa Arts Council.