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Salt Lake City’s Living Traditions Festival will return in May, with a series of smaller events

Live performances, food and video projections will be featured on five dates around the city.

( Scott Sommerdorf | Salt Lake Tribune file photo) Hella Pope paints a bowl in a traditional German style at the 2017 Living Traditions Festival in 2017. The festival will return in May 2021, with five smaller events around Salt Lake City, after a year off because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Living Traditions Festival, Salt Lake City’s annual celebration of its many cultures, will be back in May — though not in its familiar weekend-in-the-park format.

The Salt Lake City Arts Council, which puts on the festival, announced Friday it will hold a series of smaller events and large late-night video projections around the city. Festival events are free to the public.

The events will include main stage group and individual performances of traditional song and dance from a variety of cultures. A dozen culinary artists also will serve their delicacies in the festival’s food market, with COVID-19 guidelines in place.

A new initiative, the “Living Legacy Video Series,” will feature videos projected at locations throughout the festival in the late evenings, and will be available online.

The first event is set for May 15 in Washington Square, surrounding City Hall, at 400 South and State Street. That will be followed with events on May 22 at the Chase Home Museum in Liberty Park, May 23 at The Gateway, and May 29 at the International Peace Gardens in Jordan Park. The closing event, “A Taste of Living Traditions,” is scheduled for June 26 at Washington Square.

The Living Traditions Festival, which is marking its 35th anniversary this year, was one of the first Salt Lake City cultural events to be canceled last year as the coronavirus spread.