38 Best Performing Arts in Alaska, USA

More than 2,000 Native dancers gather in Juneau every even-numbered year in June to celebrate their heritage and the continued vitality of Alaska Native cultures. First held in 1982, this four-day cultural festival brings together tribal groups from all over the state, and includes a parade through the streets of Juneau for which participants don traditional, often very elaborate, handmade regalia. There's also a juried art show, Native fashion show, toddler regalia review, food contests, and a Native artist market. All events are open to the public, but the dance performances require a purchased ticket.

Four theaters make up the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, which is home to 10 resident performing arts companies—including Alaska Dance Theatre, Anchorage Opera, and the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra. The center also showcases traveling production companies. The lobby box office sells tickets to the productions and is a good all-around source of cultural information. Take a look inside to learn more about upcoming events, or relax amid the blossoms in the adjacent flower-filled Town Square Park on a sunny afternoon.

The magic of this free, weeklong music festival is its inclusivity: every performer, regardless of his or her level of professionalism, is given 15 minutes on stage, with the exception of the featured guest artists, who play two one-hour sets. Held each April, Folk Fest draws singers, banjo masters, and fiddlers from all over the state and beyond. Past guest artists have included folk singer Nanci Griffith and western swing band Hot Club of Cowtown. Almost as fun as the festival itself is the after-hours bar scene that blossoms around it. Most local bars host performances and jam sessions; on the weekend the music continues into the wee hours.

Giant vegetables are big attractions at Palmer's Alaska State Fair. Shop for Alaskan-made gifts and crafts, and whoop it up with midway rides, livestock and 4-H shows, bake-offs, home-preserved produce contests, food, and live music. The fair runs for 12 to 14 days, starting in late August and ending on Labor Day.

Catch the latest foreign films, indie flicks, and off-the-wall art pieces at this second-run theater with a back-corner bar. Place an order at the counter outside and runners will deliver your nachos, pizzas, and garlic-cilantro fries from the attached Southwestern grill directly to your seat. Throughout the year, the Bear Tooth also clears out the movie seats to host nationally touring music acts. 

In the spring, the Bethel Council on the Arts hosts a regional celebration called the Cama-i Dance Festival (in Yup'ik, cama-i means "hello"). This three-day festival takes place in the local high school's gym in late March or the first half of April. Expect dancing, singing, art and crafts, and a community potluck for sharing food and stories. Cama-i brings people together from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, along with dance groups and visitors from across Alaska and the world.

The arrival of as many as 5 million birds in the Copper River Delta each May is cause for three to five days of festivities during the first week of the month that include workshops and guided field trips. The birds, mostly western sandpipers and dunlins, feed and rest here on their long migration to their northern nesting grounds. Alaska Airlines often offers discounted fares to festivalgoers—check the chamber website for details.

In mid-July, this small-town festival draws an impressive number of artists, musicians, and athletes for the celebration of salmon (of course!) and the Salmon Runs Marathon. It's a terrific event for the entire family.

Alaska's premier cultural gathering takes place over two weeks in late July on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. The festivities, which began as a small jazz festival, now attract visitors worldwide for American roots and other music, dance, and literary, healing, visual, and culinary arts. Guests are encouraged to participate in one- or two-week classes and mini-workshops.

A street fair and parade through the city cap several days of events at this July celebration of Fairbanks's gold-rush past.

The city of Unalaska holds the Heart of the Aleutians Festival every August. A beloved local tradition, this free, two-day festival brings together residents of all ages to peruse art and crafts, listen to local music, eat specialty foods, participate in fun runs, and much more during a celebration of summer, friends, family, and community.

To shake off the winter blues, the residents of tiny Cordova gather for a weeklong celebration in early February. The festivities include a parade and numerous entertaining activities, including the Ice Worm Variety Show and the Miss Ice Worm Coronation.

Billed as "The Last Great Race," the Iditarod pulls in spectators and mushers from around the world to participate as racers, volunteers, and fans in this massive feat of endurance for mushers and their dogs. Many visitors watch the dog teams take off from the ceremonial start in Anchorage and then travel to the finish line in Nome to celebrate as teams come in. The race starts on the first weekend of March and covers about 1,049 snowy, icy, backcountry miles from its official start in Willow, 90 miles north of Anchorage, to Nome.

Performers from all over the world head to Juneau each May to celebrate music from Bach to Brubeck. Taj Mahal, Arlo Guthrie, Booker T. Jones, and the Manhattan Transfer are among past guests. First held in 1987, the festival runs for more than two weeks, showcasing jazz and classics along with blues, rock, and soul. Many events require tickets, but others—such as lunch-hour concerts at the State Office Building and jazz jams at a local bar called Lucky Lady—are free. In this spirit of accessibility, visiting musicians also perform in Juneau schools.

A high-caliber volunteer organization, the symphony performs classical works from October through June in high school auditoriums and local churches.

Early-summer visitors to Homer join thousands of migrating shorebirds for the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival on the second weekend in May. Experts offer bird-watching trips and photography demonstrations, and the simultaneous Wooden Boat Festival provides a chance to meet some of Alaska's finest boatbuilders. Various kids' events add to the fun.

Every January, the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race—“K300” to locals—brings mushers and fans to Bethel, where the 300-mile race both starts and ends. The best known of the middle-distance dogsled races, the K300 course commemorates one of the earliest mail routes used in the Bush. The $150,000 or more purse comes as a welcome reward after negotiating the notoriously harsh and difficult weather and trail conditions. Smaller, shorter races happen later in the winter in Bethel as well.

Enthusiasm for Petersburg's Norwegian heritage, expressed by rowdy locals dressed in horned helmets and fur vests, make this event one to catch. The festival has been held annually since 1958 on the weekend closest to May 17, Syttende Mai, or Norwegian Constitution Day. You won't find better Norwegian folk dancing or beer-batter halibut outside Norway.

An event held every July 4 since 1915, this race attracts runners and spectators from near and far while the entire town of Seward celebrates. The whole affair takes less than an hour, but the route is arduous: straight up the mountain (3,022 feet) and back down to the center of town. Racers are chosen on a lottery basis; enter before April for a chance, and be sure to book a hotel room well in advance.

On summertime Wednesdays, open-air concerts are presented at noon in Peratrovich Park (also known as Old City Hall Park). Come back with the family on Mondays at noon, when music is geared to the little ones.

Dedicated to preserving Alaska's Russian history, this all-female troupe has performed in Sitka since 1969. The 30-minute performances showcase authentic dances from the surrounding regions and Russia. 

The theater hosts the Golden Heart Revue, a musical-comedy show about the founding and building of Fairbanks.

Alaska's only professional theater company performs classics and new productions from September through May. The company also stages plays in Anchorage each season, and some shows have toured more extensively, among them the all-Tlingit version of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which traveled to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Perseverance is Juneau's most high-profile troupe, but also worth checking out are Theatre in the Rough, a fantastic all-volunteer theater troupe that's been staging Shakespearian works and other classics twice a year since 1991, and two opera companies, Juneau Lyric Opera and The Orpheus Project.

For more than four decades, this community theater has presented locally written and outside plays. Recent seasons have seen a Molière comedy and narratives of people in the fishing industry. The theater is in an old barnlike building on the Homer Spit.

Every August, thousands of people from all over the state and country converge on the tiny town of Ninilchik, on the Kenai Peninsula 37 miles outside of Homer, to celebrate music, food, and fish. Over the course of a three-day weekend, countless vendors of art and crafts set up shop while approximately 50 musical acts take to the four stages, drawing awareness and bolstering support for the protection of Bristol Bay waters and fishing habitat.

For the whole month of June, locals and visitors set out to catch the largest halibut of the season. There are daily winners and end-of-tournament winners. The current record holder is a 337-pound catch.

The Seward Arts Council hosts this family-friendly indoor festival between the end of September and the first weekend of October. The three-day festival draws some of Alaska's finest musicians. Many art activities take place, and artists and craftspeople sell their works in booths.

For more than 60 years, anglers from near and far have been gathering every mid-August for the state's oldest and most popular fishing derby. Vying for the largest tagged coho (silver salmon), they can win up to $50,000.

Tlingit dancers in full regalia perform at the Sheet'ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi community house on Katlian Street. Tickets are sold through cruise lines or, for independent travelers, as part of package tours offered through Viking Travel.