Laurie was born and raised in Schenectady,
but she has lived in many
East and West Coast locations. She joined
New York Folklore in 2009, enriching the
organization through her many prior years
of learned experience in the arts, banking,
and finance.
New York State
From the Director
In addition to providing technical assistance
and professional development to folk artists
and folk cultural specialists, NYF supports
a robust schedule of exhibitions, arts workshops,
and concerts. Our “Ancient Arts in
New Contexts” program focused on documenting
and presenting the traditional arts of
India and Guyana.
From the Editor
The year 2023 marked the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Champlain Canal, the “little sister” of the Erie Canal that opened two years later in 1825. At the Folklife Center, we were able to join the celebration by producing a video mini-series called Champlain Canal Stories, funded in part by a grant from the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership.
The Sasha Polinoff After-Story:
This is the story of how seemingly disparate communities coalesced around a formerly prominent musician and sustained him in old age. As such, it takes place in comparatively humble or domestic settings and with a smaller audience.
It is very much the story after the story. It begins in the closing decades of the 20th century, when Russians and all things Russian were no longer in vogue—particularly, in the wake of the McCarthy years. It begins when Lower Eastside nightclubs that once featured a variety of ethnic music, were losing patrons, in part, because their first-generation audiences had moved out of the City to the “burbs” and could no longer find a place to park.
From the Field:
As a statewide organization, New York
Folklore is always looking to strengthen
our reach to diverse regions of the state. A
grant from the National Endowment for
t he Arts is helping us do just that! New
York Folklore is prioritizing fieldwork. We
are developing a network of community
scholars who will document traditional
arts throughout the state. These fieldworkers
are supported by New York Folklore
staff, headquartered in the Capital Region.
Our fieldworkers represent diverse
communities and levels of experience. We
are excited to welcome (or welcome back!)
this exceptional group of women to the
field: Divena Ramessar, Akilah Briggs Melvin, Nada Odeh, and Ladan Nikravan.
Folklife Center30th Anniversary
The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library celebrated its 30th anniversary with a free Festival in City Park, outside the Library, in downtown Glens Falls on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Over 60 folk artists filled the park, demonstrating their crafts and sharing their traditions. Up close and personal, festivalgoers were able to witness firsthand the artists’ skills and to talk directly with the experts. Many of the artists offered a handson component to their exhibit.
A Tempest in a Teacup:
Much of the anthropological research on divination attempts to gauge its role in society, but the question remains: why is divination persuasive? An analysis of two tea leaf readings by a single reader shows that the fortunes bear a structural resemblance to folktales, with the client as hero. Like the plot in a folktale, the readings’ predictions focus on the struggle to complete the tasks of the life course, often with the help of donors. Culturally, the readings persuade by reassuring us that life imitates art, while at the psychological level, they encourage us to sift through our thoughts for people and events that fit the storyline. This is the first known study to apply a Proppian structural analysis to divination narratives. It is also a human interest story—40 years in the making—about how a grandmother who lived through hard times in the Hudson Valley of New York State taught her college-educated grandson to read tea leaves.
Reimagining Washington Irving’sThe Legend of Sleepy Hollow andRip Van Winkle in the ContemporaryDigital Era:
Washington Irving’s works The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle are considered some of the most important pieces of New York
Folk Studies and American literature. Their rich and contemplative narratives, as well as settings, have seen a huge readership across generations.
The main intention of this article is to focus on how the contemporary digital era has led to the reimagination and readaptation of Washington
Irving’s works through various digital and virtual means. With the advent of digital materials, such as e-books, Kindle, and audiobooks, we have
gained easy access to the works. Numerous interesting and engaging storytelling platforms have offered immersive experiences and helped to
engage new audiences interestingly and excitingly. Two platforms, among them, are virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. They
have broadened our minds to such an extent as to make us capable of critically analyzing the texts through various dimensions.
A Bedtime Party
Readers may recall a piece of bedtime
lore about Lily White’s Party. Growing
up on Long Island in the 1980s, I learned
about this charming affair when my mother
would tuck me in at bedtime. My grandmother
transmitted the lore to my mother in 1950s
Brooklyn. Its questionable origins notwithstanding,
of interest to me are the shifting
form, function, content, and context of the
text’s retelling.
History to Song:
For me, it all began in the Paul Smith’s
College Library, looking at historical
photos of Paul’s hotel with the librarian,
Neil Surprenant. Neil kept telling me
how major parts of the Paul Smith empire
were the idea of his wife, Lydia: the electric
company, the sawmills, the training of
their sons in hospitality. As he finished telling
me their story, I asked why there was
no large portrait of her on campus, and
only a dormitory named after her. He said,
“You’re a songwriter; write her a song.”
Foodways
“You’re my first customer!”
I was delighted to be greeted with this exclamation
when, after rolling up to Sasha Kocho
Williams’ annual plant sale, I got enticed
into picking up some gorgeous homemade
bread, muffins, and cranberry lemonade
before I even made it to the array of plant
starts. Two of Sasha’s four children were
running the tent, selling a beautiful array of
baked goods in paper packets, eggs, flowers,
homemade salves, and more. A nearby
homemade sign noted there would also be
music later in the day. A short walk past it,
down the path would take you into Small
Change Farm proper, Sasha and her husband
Ali’s homestead farm in Potsdam, New York,
with its extensive vegetable and herb patches,
high tunnel, greenhouse spaces, and barns
lively with goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and
pigs.
New York Folklore secures over $600,000.00 for Folk and Traditional Arts in New York State
Artists and organizations in New York State will receive a combined total of over $600,000 in grants, thanks to their partnerships with New York Folklore. These funds from the the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) support artists, specific cultural...
From the Director
We are pleased and honored to introduce Rasel Ahmed, our Fall-Winter 2023 special issue editor. In early 2023, New York Folklore issued a Call for Proposals for guest editors and identified two talented emerging folklorists. Each proposed a specific theme or focus, with Rasel Ahmed’s issue focusing on folklore in a transnational context.
From the Editor
Folklore, not confined to boundaries of nationalism,
homogeneity, and diversity, manifests across
digital platforms, like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook,
shaping how people navigate in the virtual
era. These platforms enable rapid dissemination
of cultural expressions, transcending geographical
and temporal boundaries. The shift challenges the
approach to studying and defining folklore.
Tradition, Social Media and Community:
Shewly emerges as a compelling example, within a cohort of women in New York, who congregate and share experiences within their community, extending their interactions to a broader virtual community. …Traditionally, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren in Bangladesh and its diaspora enjoyed relative openness and freedom from censorship of male–female relationships. Criticisms directed at virtual activities, mainly by trolling, highlight anxieties surrounding the expansion of social ties into the virtual realm.