As we close out our 80th Anniversary 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. Working collaboratively with communities, New York Folklore strives to bring regenerative practices to bear to support the maintenance, cultivation, and nurturing of the diverse cultural heritages found in New York State. We eagerly look forward to 2025, continuing many of our projects alongside the inauguration of new initiatives. Here are a few of the highlights of 2024….
Our Birthday Celebration in September featured folk and traditional artists and organizations from throughout the state for a day of performances and presentations in Schenectady’s new pop-up park, “Jay Square.” Featured artists who participated in the Artists Marketplace included those engaged with New York Folklore’s Micro-Enterprise project for the Capital District, supported through a two-year grant from the United Way of the Greater Capital Region. These artists receive marketing and promotional support, including the building of web-based and in-person sales opportunities.
Birthday Party attendees dance to Music by Paul Hage and David Hage, led by New York Folklore Board Member Nada Odeh .
Our anniversary celebrations continue in 2025 with the 80th Anniversary of our signature publication. Originally, New York Folklore Quarterly, we continue to publish the folklore and folk culture of New Yorkers through Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore.
New York Folklore’s support for artists continued in 2024. We were pleased to sponsor 18 artists for NYSCA-supported individual artist or apprenticeship grants for 2024 and look forward to supporting 22 artists through grants from the New York State Council on the Arts in 2025. Artists come from multiple New York State counties, including Rensselaer, Schenectady, Albany, Columbia, Westchester, Greene, and Ulster. As always, New York Folklore continues to support artists for short-term mentoring and professional development through our ongoing technical assistance programs, providing skills-training and information for artists to build their capacity.
2024 continued New York Folklore’s expansion as
a leader in folk arts education. With encouragement from the
City of Schenectady School District, New York Folklore supported ongoing after-school instruction by Ghanaian drummer, Zorkie Nelson in five of the District Schools to teach the instruments and skills of Ghanaian drumming.
New York Folklore provides ongoing fiscal sponsorship for the Pan African Youth Orchestra, an initiative by Zorkie Nelson to introduce a unique ensemble to the Capital District which is modeled on the Pan African Youth Orchestra of Ghana. Students meet weekly to learn the instruments of the ensemble, including the atenteben (bamboo flute) and the gylis (gourd xylophone). Still in its early phases, the ensemble will continue to receive fiscal support through New York Folklore.
A new initiative for 2024-2025, New York Folklore is part of a consortium of organizations, led by Local Learning, who have come together through a “Teaching with Primary Sources” grant from the Library of Congress. Working with curriculum specialists and teachers, New York Folklore will be developing curriculum based upon recorded folk cultural material from New York State that is currently held in the Library of Congress, with a focus on Indigenous materials from the Seneca Territories.
New York Folklore’s
exploration of foodways traditions continued throughout 2024, with support from the New York State Council on the Arts, and from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation’s Initiative for Columbia County. Local community chefs representing foodways traditions presented as part of our ongoing
“Cooking up Community” series at the
Hudson Library, and in partnership with
Albany’s West Hill Refugee Welcome Center.
Community cultural documentation continued, with the involvement of community fieldworkers Akilah Briggs-Melvin in
Binghamton, Ladan Nikravan in the
Capital District and Utica, and folklorists Anne Rappaport Berliner (
Capital District and Mohawk Valley) and Edgar Betelu (
Capital District and Hudson Valley). We continued statewide community documentation efforts in 2024 through support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ralph Wilson Foundation, to include
community documentation in
Allegany, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus Counties in partnership with Tri-County
Arts Council. Nada Odeh provided documentation and programming involving the region’s Lebanese and Arabic-American population for this project. The project will continue in 2025, with a community documentation workshop to take place in
Jamestown in April 2025.
New York Folklore continues to forge new ground and to work with new partners. New York Folklore has launched an Indigenous “place marking” project. Community advocate and Seneca artist, Bill Crouse, is the artistic lead for the project, developing artwork based upon oral historical interviews with Seneca elders to ascertain places of significance to Indigenous communities within New York’s watersheds. This project, supported by the Our Town Program of the National Endowment for the Arts, has expanded to the Mohawk and Schoharie Watersheds, through support from the Mohawk Basin Grants Program of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and Humanities NY, working with community partners to accomplish the documentation. Watch for a new Indigenous Place Names map and physical markers to be placed in many locations throughout New York’s Southern Tier and Mohawk Valley!
2025 will see the implementation of the New York Folklore Archives Collaboration through a grant from the National Historical and Publications Records Commission (NHPRC). Working with consortium partners from throughout New York State, folklore archives in small repositories will be linked for greater access and preservation.
Throughout the year, we hosted hundreds of people through our programming. If you missed any of this, we encourage you to attend our events in 2025. Join us in our work! Your “Year End” Donation in any amount directly supports the work of New York Folklore. Donate Now!
