Ellen McHale

Akilah Briggs-Melvin

Akilah Briggs-Melvin

Step dance, also known as stepping, is a style of percussive dance where a dancer uses their entire body as an instrument to make rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken words,and hand claps. Traditionally stepping was rooted and developed after the...

Maxwell Kofi Donkor

Maxwell Kofi Donkor

Maxwell Kofi Donkor is an internationally recognized artist and master cultural educator who is most known for his performances and teaching of African Drumming and Dance, through the Sankofa African Drum and Dance Ensemble.  For many decades, he has focused on...

Mateo Cano and Maria Puentes Flores

Mateo Cano and Maria Puentes Flores

Musicians Mateo Cano and Maria Puentes Flores are founders of the musical ensemble, Pulso de Barro, or "pulse of the clay," that performs the Son Jarocho music from the Mexican state of Veracruz.  Son Jarocho is a highly rhythmic musical style that came about through...

Felix Nelson

Felix Nelson

FELIX NELSON was born in 1988 and grew up in the Jamestown area of Accra. He followed in the footsteps of his talented parents to become a highly skilled musician, singer, dancer and dance educator. Felix came to the US in 2006 to join his father Zorkie in upstate NY...

New York Folklore Adds New Board Members

New York Folklore Adds New Board Members

The membership of New York Folklore elected new representatives to its board of directors during its annual meeting on April 4, 2024.  Now in its 80th year, New York Folklore has met annually to elect board members and officers, and to support the business of the New...

New York Folklore’s Year in Review

New York Folklore’s Year in Review

As we close out our 79th year, we at New York Folklore give thanks for all of our supporters who have made our programming initiatives possible with your donations and partnerships.  We strive to work with, and in support for, New York's diverse communities,  and we...

80 Years of Folk Arts and Cultural Equity

80 Years of Folk Arts and Cultural Equity

2024 will mark eighty years since the founding of the New York Folklore Society! Throughout our history, we have championed cultural equity at all levels: local grassroots initiatives, regional conferences, state advocacy, and national presentations. Every year we...

The Celebration of Pinkster in New York State

The Celebration of Pinkster in New York State

Written by guest author, Chief Baba Neil Clarke The Pinkster Festival is a very important 350-year-old, but little known, Africanized celebration which took place annually in the Hudson River Valley region, including the N.Y.C. area for almost two hundred years. ...

New York Folklore Announces its 2023 Board of Directors

New York Folklore Announces its 2023 Board of Directors

New York Folklore is governed by a Board of Directors that is drawn from the membership. Membership in the Board of Directors reflects the diversity and geography of New York State. A term of service on the board is two years. An individual can serve for three terms...