Community and campus cultural groups will share their heritage and culture this Sunday at Chapel Hill’s first Near and Far street festival.

Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership executive director Meg McGurk said the street festival is a local celebration of global cultures in our community.

“This is a collaboration between the town, UNC and the Downtown Partnership,” said McGurk.

According to Chapel Hill Library Director Susan Brown, the festival will include five stage performances from cultural groups around town including Scandemonium, a Nordic folk group and a Lumbee Tribe Cultural Performance as well as street performances featuring Korean pop and Brazilian dance fighting.

“It’s going to be amazing. I’m glad that people are psyched about it, we’ve been working hard, we’ve got a really great lineup,” Brown said. “Then we have a whole bunch of community cultural groups that have their booths and tables and they are offering interactive things like Ukrainian doll painting and all kinds of stuff. And then a couple of food trucks and then a tasting tent.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger said she is glad people have taken notice of the flags hung on Franklin Street for the festival and that this is the first of what will be an annual event.

“I’m so excited, we’ve just have had a lot of requests to do something like this. I just think it embraces who we are, we get to celebrate and we get to see different cultures and just be more aware and connect,” said Hemminger.

The festival is scheduled for 140 West Plaza from 2 to 5 p.m. For more information, visit Near and Far Chapel Hill’s website.

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