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A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Collection of music and dance from New York immigrant groups now available for research

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest blog post by 2018 summer project archivist Jesse Hocking, who is pursuing a master’s degree in library and information studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I grew up in West Virginia and Georgia and spent my undergraduate years in film and ethnic studies, so in many ways the American Folklife Center …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

James Mooney Recordings of American Indian Ghost Dance Songs, 1894

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

In the summer of 1894 James Mooney, a scholar of American Indian culture and language, made recordings of songs of the Ghost Dance in several languages.  The James Money Recordings of American Indian Ghost Dance Songs have recently been updated and are part of the presentation, Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry. …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Urban Folklife, Urban Artistry: breaking down the complexities of urban dance with Junious Brickhouse

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The following is a guest post from AFC folklife specialist Michelle Stefano. On February 22 at noon, the Library of Congress will host the talented dancers of Urban Artistry, Inc. in the Coolidge Auditorium as part of the Homegrown Concert Series of the American Folklife Center. Audience members are in for a treat: three rounds …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Dance!

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Note: This is part of a series of blog posts about the 40th Anniversary Year of the American Folklife Center. Visit this link to see them all! April 29 is International Dance Day, established by the International Dance Council (CID) in 1982 to call attention to the importance of dance worldwide.  So get your dances …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Omaha Hethu’shka Society Songs and Dances

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Historically, the Omaha Indian Hethu’shka Society were a group of highly respected men, voted into the group by unanimous consent of the society, who aimed to set a strong example for their people of the best attributes of a warrior. Although traditionally deeds in combat were the central test for inclusion in the society, such …

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Dance Heritage Coalition Intern Helps Expand Access to Lomax Choreometrics Materials

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post from Lotus Norton-Wisla, an intern at the American Folklife Center working to improve access to materials in the Alan Lomax Collection related to choreometrics, which was Lomax’s methodology for studying dance performance style. These materials consist of more than 70 boxes of paper materials and more than 3,500 film elements. …

Patrick Tayluer points at the rigging of a ship model while talking to a man in a Naval Academy Midshipman's uniform.

Like a Snap of a Carrot: Shipwreck Stories with Patrick Tayluer

Posted by: Stephen Winick

When William Main Doerflinger interviewed the retired sailor and shanty singer Patrick Tayluer in April, 1942, one of the topics he asked Tayluer about was shipwrecks. This is not surprising: ever since people took to the seas in ships, maritime folks have been fascinated and terrified by shipwrecks; shipwreck stories go back to the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. As it turned out, Tayluer had several stories about shipwrecks, which he told as first-person narratives, but which might not have happened exactly as he described. We’ll look at two of those stories in this post, exploring Tayluer's fascinating blend of fact and fiction.