Schedule:

The 2025 North Carolina Rice Festival

The 2025 events lineup will culminate on Day 4 with the day-long North Carolina Rice Festival, returning once again to the historic Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson site on the banks of the Brunswick River.

Surrounded by some of the County's largest former rice plantations, this venue offers an excellent site for festivities and reflection on the Rice Festival’s dual themes. With plenty of free parking, scenic views, and a delightful riverwalk, the site provides ample room for the Festival’s Come Hear NC Stage, sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources and spotlighting live NC-based bands and performers.

It is also a great spot for the Gullah Geechee Corridor Commission Stage, hosting historical presentations and panels under a giant tent, and the Brunswick and North Carolina Arts Councils’ Children’s Pavilion, where lots of fun, educational activities, storytelling, and demonstrations for young children and teens will take place.

 Among the exciting, virtually “all-Gullah Geechee” lineup of presenters, performers, and speakers to grace these 2025 stages will be Marquetta Goodwine, aka “Queen Quet,” widely proclaimed as the “Chieftess of the Gullah Geechee Nation.”  A native of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, Queen Quet founded of the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and was the first person of Gullah Geechee origin to speak on behalf of that cultural/ethnic group before the United Nations.

Professional storyteller and actress Carolyn Evans will also showcase her original dramatic performance, “Harriett Tubman—Civil War Days” from the Corridor stage.  Other live performers include Tendaji Bailey, founder of the Gullah Geechee Futures Project, which aims to educate the public about the rich history and culture of Gullah Geechee communities throughout the coastal southeast and beyond. Added to this premier cultural/historical mix will be a presentation from historian Daniel Jones, the cultural curator at Wilmington’s Cameron Art Museum and coordinator of its Boundless Sculpture Garden Park. He will speak about the U.S. Colored Troops who fought at the Battle of Forks Road and aided mightily in the capture of Wilmington, which led to the end of the Civil War.

Also returning to this year's Come Hear NC Stage will be last year’s Gala headliners, Shea Ra Nichi and The Cultural Ensemble, presenting a new, original performance reflecting even deeper aspects of North Carolina’s unique Gullah Geechee history and culture. Dancer-choreographer Nichi was recently selected to join the NCRFI board earlier this year, and she has brought her eclectic background as a cultural interpreter specializing in African and Indigenous dance forms to the organization’s benefit in this year’s Festival programming.

Another NC-based ensemble, Africa Unplugged, led by djembe drum master, guitarist, and songwriter Atiba Rorie,  will also be featured on the Come Hear NC stage. Africa Unplugged combines West Africa traditional percussion with guitars and bass to evoke traditional rhythms and influences from new and old worlds. An additional NC-based performer on that stage will be the SolTree Reign Band and Mahlaynee Cooper. Cooper is a poet, singer, artivist, rtistic director, and teaching artist and the founder of Speak Ya Peace NC, which champions awareness of injustices through art and activism, with her band adding a musical dimension to their endeavors.  

The Festival’s Children’s Pavilion is a collaboration between the NCRFI, the Brunswick Arts Council, and the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson Historic Site. Funded in part by the state’s Department of Natural & Cultural Resources and the North Carolina Arts Council’s Grassroots Program, the Pavilion will host drumming, dancing, and singing with Harriet Tubman reenactor Carolyn Evans and storyteller Marva Moss. Together, they will provide lively and insightful narrative tales drawn from Gullah Geechee history and culture and the resilience of both to the delight of young and old.

Tendaji Bailey’s Gullah Geechee Futures Project will also present on the children’s stage a dramatic presentation geared toward younger audiences. That performance, titled “Cast, Woven, Forged: The Art of Gullah Geechee Labor,” is a dynamic piece that blends traditional and folk Gullah Geechee art with innovative digital and immersive experiences.  Additional Gullah Geechee heritage artisans and craftspeople presenting at the Children’s Pavilion will educate, inspire, and engage youthful audiences with hands-on learning experiences and cultural demonstrations covering an array of practical and artistic themes such as Gullah Geechee blacksmithing traditions, the artistry and cultural significance of sweetgrass basketry, and the making of cast fishing nets.

And, free copies of the highly popular North Carolina Gullah Geechee Activity Book will once again be distributed from the Children’s Pavilion this year. NCRFI-produced with funding from the collaborating arts councils and The Landfall Foundation, that 36-page booklet presents a wide range of fun facts, coloring, music, recipes, and learning activities for children from third grade on up—all with the goal of teaching them about the history of rice cultivation and Gullah Geechee culture in coastal North Carolina, particularly in Brunswick County and Brunswick Town.

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