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

FrankenMumming: The 2018 AFC Mummers’ Play

Posted by: Stephen Winick

Note: Every year, in the week of the Library’s holiday party, staff members of the American Folklife Center put our research and performance skills into play, bringing collections to life in a dramatic performance that tours the halls of the Library of Congress.  Dressed in costumes that range from striking to silly, we sing, act, …

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

Homegrown Plus: From the Mountains to the Sea with Jeff and Gerret Warner

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In the Homegrown Plus series, we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. (Find the whole series here!) We’re continuing the series with From the Mountains to the Sea: The Folksong Collecting Work of Anne and Frank Warner, an unusual presentation in our series.  From the Mountains …

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

Homegrown Plus: Gabriel Muñoz and Melodias Borinqueñas

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In the Homegrown Plus series, we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. (Find the whole series here!) We’re continuing the series with Gabriel Muñoz and Melodias Borinqueñas, an ensemble from New Jersey performing Puerto Rican folk music. The group is led by Gabriel Muñoz, a …

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

Folklife at the International Level: the Roots of Intangible Cultural Heritage Part III

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

This series of blog posts has turned to looking more closely at the roots of the ‘intangible cultural heritage’ (ICH) concept, laying a foundation for examining the global policy – and thereby framework – from which it draws its strength: the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of the United Nations …

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

Our First Podcast Episode–and a Halloween Lecture by Jack Santino!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The Folklife Today Halloween Podcast is Live As we hope you’ve come to expect, we have something very special in store this Halloween. As I mentioned in our last post, we’re launching the Folklife Today Podcast on October 29, and hey…that’s today! The first episode is called “Haunting Tunes for Halloween.” It’s hosted by John …

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

Engaging Collections: AFC Chicago Ethnic Arts Collection Gathering

Posted by: Michelle Stefano

With 31 digitized AFC collections now online at loc.gov, AFC staff has long been thinking of ways to promote and enhance meaningful uses of them. In the past couple of years, these discussions have focused on the digitized, ethnographic survey collections, such as the Montana Folklife Survey, South Central Georgia Folklife Project, Rhode Island Folklife …

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

Homegrown Plus: The Fairfield Four

Posted by: Stephen Winick

In the Homegrown Plus series, we present Homegrown concerts that also had accompanying oral history interviews, placing both together in an easy-to-find blog post. (Find the whole series here!) We’re continuing the series with the The Fairfield Four, an African-American gospel quartet that has existed for more than 95 years. Best known for its performance in the …

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

Pics of the Week: Blues Jam with Phil Wiggins!

Posted by: Stephen Winick

This past weekend, AFC held the last of its planned Summer Jams, with a Blues Jam led by the great Phil Wiggins and co-sponsored by the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation.  We plan to hold more of the jams in the near future, repeating some of the genres we’ve already featured (old-time, Irish, ballads, and …