At the beginning of July, the American Folklife Center (AFC) welcomed two of three interns that we’ll be hosting this summer, and the third will join us in the middle of the month. These interns will be working directly with AFC staff on projects that support our core activities around public programming and researcher support. In this post, learn about our summer interns and their areas of expertise.
In this post, the American Folklife Center announces a new online collection for the COVID-19 American History Project. The collection, titled Reflections from the COVID-19 Pandemic from Last Responders, features 19 oral history interviews with embalmers, funeral home owners, and other funeral professionals about their pandemic experiences. The collection was created by Anita Grant, Joél Maldonado, and Jasmine Johnson, of Gran Enterprises LLC, between 2023 and 2024.
The American Folklife Center is excited to announce that we’re bringing our Archive Challenge model to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, both on the National Mall and streaming live on YouTube! Our good friends and colleagues across the Mall have cooked up a great festival on the theme of “Youth and the Future of Culture.” As part of the festivities, we’ve engaged 8 groups of young musicians to learn pieces from the Archive of Folk Culture and play them on the festival’s main stage. Youth Archive Challenge sets will occur on July 2, 4, 5, and 7 and will feature Irish American tunes, Hungarian folk dance, Anglo American traditional ballads, American old-time music, Persian Classical music, multiethnic street songs, Bulgarian folk music, and Caribbean steel pan—with a special appearance by frequent Festival and Homegrown artist Christylez Bacon. Find links to the schedule and the streams, as well as information on the performers, in this post!
This post premieres the film, El Motor: Coffee and the Heart of Puerto Rico, by filmmaker Russell Oliver who received a 2022 Community Collections Grant from the American Folklife Center, as part of the Library of Congress Of the People: Widening the Path initiative. The film captures the challenges of farming alongside moments of triumph, revealing how Puerto Rico’s coffee farmers preserve tradition while adapting for the future. This year's American Folklife Center's Homegrown Foodways Film Series celebrates Community Collections Grant recipients.
Welcome to the latest post in the Homegrown Plus series, featuring Susana Behar, one of the leading voices in Sephardic Song, with a hand-picked ensemble of accompanists. Just like other blogs in the series, this one includes a concert video, a video interview with Susana, and connections to Library of Congress collections. Susana Behar was born in Havana to a Cuban family with roots in the Sephardic community of Turkey. From an early age, she was immersed in the traditional music of her homeland as well as the evocative kantikas in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) passed down by her grandparents. In 1965 she emigrated to Venezuela, where she started to explore and perform the music of her adoptive country as well as Latin American and Jewish folk music. She earned a degree in biology from the Universidad Central de Venezuela before moving to Miami, where she has lived and performed ever since. In the concert, she performs Sephardic, Cuban, and Venzuelan songs, joined by Michel Gonzalez on guitar, Adolfo Herrera on percussion, and Saul Vera on mandolin and bandola llana. In the interview, she tells us about her life in Cuba, the trauma of her family’s departure, and her life in Venezuela and the United States, with an emphasis on the intersection of her Latin American and Jewish heritage.
We continue our exploration of Jack tales with a fascinating story recorded in the Bahamas in 1935: "Jack Rescues the Princess from the Tiger." The story was told to Alan Lomax and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle by Alexander Finderson and a group of his neighbors in Andros Island. The tale involves a princess who is abducted by a tiger and forced to marry him, until Jack comes along to rescue her. In addition to presenting audio and a transcription of the tale, we'll look at some of this story's connections to other folktales. Interestingly, it seems to have roots in a story that is widespread in India, but also has connections to Bre'r Rabbit tales from South Carolina. The post also presents striking photos of a man we believe might be the storyteller.
This post premieres the film, Bayous, Buddha, and Padaek: Southern Louisiana's Lao Foodways, by filmmakers Phanat Xanamane, Sami "Sai" Haggood, and Ba Bader who received a 2022 Community Collections Grant from the Center. The film is a captivating two-part documentary that delves into the rich culinary traditions of the Lao Buddhist immigrant community in Louisiana. This year's American Folklife Center's Homegrown Foodways Film Series celebrates Community Collections Grant recipients.
The latest post in the Homegrown Plus series features Ensemble Sangineto, one of the most popular groups on the Italian folk scene. Just like other blogs in the series, this one includes a concert video, a video interview with the musicians, and connections to Library of Congress collections. The ensemble Sangineto is comprised of three talented singers and instrumentalists. Adriano and Caterina Sangineto are twins -- Adriano plays Celtic harp and Caterina plays bowed psaltery. Jacopo Ventura rounds out the trio on guitar. The group sings in three-part harmony, with Caterina's clear voice taking the lead. The Sanginetos are children of a world-renowned luthier who has spent years crafting instruments for some of the leading folk and early music performers, so their childhood was spent meeting and listening to such musicians as Derek Bell of the Chieftains and Alan Stivell, a foundational artist of the Breton music revival. Ventura is a conservatory trained classical guitarist who has branched out to play many of the stringed instruments common in European and Asian folk music. Their concert takes you on a trip through Italy via a traditional song from each region, with medieval, Celtic, jazz, and contemporary stylings among others, thrown in for good measure.
In the interview, we learn about their lives and the world of Italian folk music.
In this post, AFC Folklife Specialists Michelle Stefano and Meg Nicholas chat with Tameshia Rudd-Ridge and Jourdan Brunson, from the Community Collections Grant project "If Tenth Street Could Talk." The post includes photographs from the project, interview excerpts, and a link to the full interview, in the first episode of a special subseries of the Folklife Today podcast.
