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...
Ellen McHale
Pamela Badila and Diata Diata International Folkloric Theatre
Pamela Badila is a folkteller artist and co-founder, along with her late husband Elombe Badila, of the Diata Diata International Folkloric Theatre. Pamela Badila is a visual and performing artist with a background in education. As part of of Diata Diata...
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
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 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...
Recognizing and Celebrating Schenectady’s Guyanese and Caribbean Heritages
Today, I exited off the Michigan Avenue Exit ramp of Schenectady's I-890, and smiled. Looming in front of me was the mural that was created at the end of June 2024 by Raè Frasier of Art Money, three students enrolled in the Schenectady Job Training Agency's after...
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...
Indian Classical and Folklife Traditions in the Schenectady School District
On any week in the 2023-2024 academic year, one can encounter a New York Folklore-sponsored folk arts program within any of the nineteen schools which make up the Schenectady School District. Through grants from the Our Town program of the National Endowment for the...
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
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...
Guest Editors Announced for Special Issues of “Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore”
New York Folklore is pleased to announce that two upcoming issues of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore, will be provided through the work of guest editors. These issues will reflect the scholarly endeavors and current research of two of folklore's most...
Position Open: Guest Editor for Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore
New York Folklore seeks a Guest Editor for the Spring/Summer 2024 and/or Fall/Winter 2024 volume of its signature publication, Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore. Published twice yearly (Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter), Voices is a peer-reviewed scholarly...
A Pan African Youth Orchestra for New York’s Capital Region
A new musical venture for the Capital District has begun, with support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Schenectady County Initiative Program (CIP). This innovative musical project is the creation of a Pan-African Orchestra, modeled after a...
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 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...