Programs

Gratitude

Gratitude

Gratitude.  That is a difficult word to embrace this year, as we collectively battled a pandemic, a tumultuous election, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives – some of whom were friends, neighbors, and family.   However, I would like to take this moment to...

Folk Arts Education in K-12 Educational Settings

Folk Arts Education in K-12 Educational Settings

Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education has been doing innovative work in New York State through its annual Culture, Community and the Classroom workshops.   The Culture, Community and the Classroom workshops take place over several days,...

New Yorkers Honor the Dead through Día de los Muertos

New Yorkers Honor the Dead through Día de los Muertos

The Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a celebration that spans centuries.  In its trajectory through the ages, the celebration has received influences from indigenous peoples, Catholicism, regional differences, and the creativity of those...

May 2020: 20 Folk Artists/20 Days

May 2020: 20 Folk Artists/20 Days

On May 1, 2020, New York Folklore and folklore programs across New York State will launch a collaboration to present traditional arts and culture from throughout New York State. Each weekday in May, from 4:00 -4:30 p.m., traditional arts activities will be presented...

Folk Tales and Fairy Tales in Performance

Folk Tales and Fairy Tales in Performance

Perhaps more than any other single aspect of the discipline of folklore, the collection, study, and analysis of narrative arts, storytelling, and storytellers has been a central part of folklore scholarship since the field was founded in the mid-Nineteenth Century. ...

My Mentorship with Eric Charry about Jola Bougarabou Drumming

My Mentorship with Eric Charry about Jola Bougarabou Drumming

Within five minutes of his arrival on April 6, 2018, my mentor, Professor Eric Charry of Wesleyan University, taught me something I did not know about interviewing musicians. Pulling up a photo of Nfamara Badjie playing bougarabou, Eric immediately notices that drum...