Event Videos

  • Film, Video
    Rev. Robert B. Jones Sr. Concert Rev. Robert B. Jones Sr. is an inspirational musician and storyteller celebrating the history, humor and power of American roots music. His deep love for traditional African American and American music is shared in live performances that interweave timeless stories with original and traditional songs. For more than 30 years, Jones has entertained and educated audiences of all ages in schools, colleges, libraries, union...
    • Contributor: Jones Sr., Rev. Robert B.
    • Date: 2024-02-15
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Rev. Robert B. Jones Sr. Rev. Robert B. Jones Sr. speaks with Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center. Jones is an inspirational musician and storyteller celebrating the history, humor and power of American roots music. His deep love for traditional African American and American music is shared in live performances that interweave timeless stories with original and traditional songs. For more than 30 years, Jones has entertained and...
    • Contributor: Jones Sr., Rev. Robert B. - Winick, Stephen
    • Date: 2024-02-15
  • Film, Video
    Puzzle Pieces of Longevity Science Longevity has turned into a buzzword of late. There are many very wealthy people who tout their ability to defy age by following rigid health regimes that are out of reach for the average person, but longevity can also be accessible to everyone. The goal of this event is to bring specialists from the fields engaging with longevity science to speak on how cognitive...
    • Contributor: Fenn, John - Magsamen, Susan - Ireland, Lisa - Kay, Jon - O'Brien, Kelly
    • Date: 2024-02-07
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Charly Lowry Singer-songwriter Charly Lowry speaks with Stephen Winick and Megan Nicholas from the American Folklife Center. An Indigenous woman from Pembroke, North Carolina belonging to the Lumbee and Tuscarora Tribes, Lowry considers her work a platform for raising awareness around issues that plague underdeveloped and underserved Native communities. Lowry is a songwriter who accompanies herself on acoustic and electric guitars and Native American hand drum....
    • Contributor: Nicholas, Megan - Lowry, Charly - Winick, Stephen
    • Date: 2024-01-18
  • Film, Video
    Swahili Resources at Library of Congress This video provides a dynamic overview and orientation to Swahili-language materials found at the Library of Congress, offered in Swahili by reference specialist Melanie Zeck. The video comes out of an ongoing collaboration that Zeck has pursued with CHAUKIDU (Global Association for the Promotion of Swahili) leadership and Swahili language scholars/learners that serves to engage Swahili speakers with the Library's collections and resources.
    • Contributor: Zeck, Melanie
    • Date: 2023-11-29
  • Film, Video
    'Native America: Language Is Life' Panel Discussion From Hollywood films on the big screen to sacred writing deep within the Earth, from long-lost voices captured in wax cylinders, Native people are fighting to keep their languages and ways of life alive. Though many of the approximately 170 Native languages spoken across the United States remain at risk today, it is a time of hope. A revolutionary effort to revitalize traditional languages...
    • Contributor: Soctomah, Donald - Glassman, Gary - Golding, Daniel - Shankar, Guha - Himmelreich, Jennifer Johns
    • Date: 2023-11-09
  • Film, Video
    Charly Lowry: Lumbee-Tuscarora Singer and Songwriter Charly Lowry is a dynamic singer-songwriter from Pembroke, North Carolina. An Indigenous woman belonging to the Lumbee and Tuscarora Tribes, sheconsiders her work a platform for raising awareness around issues that plague underdeveloped and underserved Native communities. Lowry is a songwriter who accompanies herself on acoustic and electric guitars and Native American hand drum. She earned a semi-finalist spot on season 3 of American...
    • Contributor: Rugala, Gary - Lowry, Charly - Mackay, Andrew Ferrier - Miller, Derek
    • Date: 2023-11-09
  • Film, Video
    El Camino del Mole a New Orleans El Camino del Mole a New Orleans chronicles the story of Ivan Castillo, originally from Veracruz, who immigrated to New Orleans after Katrina. He began working in clean up and reconstruction but soon moved to the restaurant industry. He worked in multiple kitchens, then as head cook in a Honduran-owned restaurant. In pursuit of more autonomy, he opened a street food vending business in...
    • Contributor: Gissela Maldonado, Saira - Cortez, Ivan Castillo - Flores, Gilberto - Donnelly, Briyith
    • Date: 2023-11-07
  • Film, Video
    El Camino del Pan a Baltimore El Camino del Pan a Baltimore chronicles the life of José Vargas, owner of a bakery and taqueria located in Highlandtown, a neighborhood in East Baltimore. Vargas migrated to Baltimore from Huaquechula, Mexico and decided to build on his family tradition of baking bread. Jos??'s story began in Mexico with his family's bakery, but after arriving in Baltimore he established a business selling Mexican...
    • Contributor: Vargas, José
    • Date: 2023-11-07
  • Film, Video
    Listening to Divergent Histories through Canadian Music Canadian ethnomusicologist Beverley Diamond reflects on how her approaches to documenting culture have shifted over 50 years, echoing not only changes in the academic realm but changes in her relations with Indigenous and other culturally diverse communities. She suggests that her approach may align with differences between Canadian and American institutions more generally, given such factors as two official languages and multiple forms of...
    • Contributor: Diamond, Beverley
    • Date: 2023-10-16
  • Film, Video
    NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award Public Ceremony The NEA National Heritage Fellowships is the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts. Each year since 1982, the program recognizes recipients' artistic excellence, lifetime achievement, and contributions to our nation's traditional arts heritage.
    • Date: 2023-09-29
  • Film, Video
    Alejandro Brittes Quartet: Masters of Chamamé The Alejandro Brittes Quartet uses innovation to explores the traditional, cross-border chamamé musical genre, a confluence of indigenous Guaraní and Iberian Baroque influences, slow-cooked over centuries. The unique ensemble, based in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, is composed of Alejandro Brittes (accordion) from Argentina, as well as Charlise Bandeira (flute), André Ely (seven-stringed guitar), and Carlos de Césaro (contrabass), all...
    • Contributor: Césaro, Carlos De - Brittes, Alejandro - Ely, André - Bandeira, Charlise
    • Date: 2023-09-21
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Alejandro Brittes Alejandro Brittes' musical career spans over 30 years. He has published 100 original compositions and nine albums, and has performed in ten nations in the Americas and Europe, collaborating with chamamé legends such as Raúl Barboza and Chango Spasiuk. For 2023 U.S. touring, Alejandro Brittes Quartet is supported by Ibermúsicas/Mid Atlantic Arts' Iber Exchange program, and the Lei de Incentivo a Cultura -- Rouanet...
    • Contributor: Brittes, Alejandro - Peach, Douglas
    • Date: 2023-09-21
  • Film, Video
    Nani Noam Vazana: Ladino Singer, Musician, Composer Noam "Nani" Vazana is one of the only artists in the world who writes and composes new songs in the endangered Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) language, a very archaic form of Castilian Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews living mostly in Israel, the Balkans, North Africa, Greece, and Turkey. Ladino, which traveled to these areas with Jewish communities expelled from Spain in 1492, is very nearly...
    • Contributor: Vazana, Nani Noam
    • Date: 2023-09-14
  • Film, Video
    Singing in Solidarity: Women's Voices Celebrate Labor Day In celebration of Labor Day, the Library's American Folklife Center honors the contributions of women of both the past and present. This compilation of Folklife Homegrown and other concerts includes performances by Thea Hopkins, Ialoni, Martha Gonzales, Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light, Piper Hayes, and the group, Windborne that feature the voices of women.
    • Date: 2023-09-06
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Nani Noam Vazana Noam "Nani" Vazana is one of the only artists in the world who writes and composes new songs in the endangered Ladino (or Judeo-Spanish) language, a very archaic form of Castilian Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews living mostly in Israel, the Balkans, North Africa, Greece and Turkey. Ladino, which traveled to these areas with Jewish communities expelled from Spain in 1492, is very nearly...
    • Contributor: Winick, Stephen - Vazana, Noam "Nani"
    • Date: 2023-09-06
  • Film, Video
    Deitsch: Traditional Folk Music, Made in Germany Deitsch plays traditional songs and dance tunes from Germany, some of them 250 years old. For years, German folk music was neglected and nearly forgotten, or derided as old-fashioned and conservative. But now, arranged and interpreted in the style of modern folk music from Germany's European neighbors, it emerges timeless and contemporary at the same time.
    • Contributor: Deitsch
    • Date: 2023-08-23
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Gundrun Walther and Jürgen Treyz of Deitsch Gudrun Walther (voice, violin, viola, diatonic accordion) and Jürgen Treyz (guitar, mandolin, mandola, voice) had built up years of experience with award-winning bands and projects before founding Deitsch as a duo in the mid 2000s. Their duo recordings won many awards, including the German Record Critics' Quarterly Prize in 2009. They have since added Barbara Hintermeier (violin, viola, voice) and Steffen Gabriel (flute, bagpipes,...
    • Contributor: Treyz, Jürgen - Walther, Gundrun - Winick, Stephen
    • Date: 2023-08-23
  • Film, Video
    Folklore Today/Folklore Tomorrow: Expanding the Conversation with Marilyn White Folklorist Marilyn White, current President of the American Folklore Society, retired Professor at Kean University, and a pivotal member of such influential groups as the Association of African and African American Folklorists, City Lore (NYC), and the New Jersey Folklore Society, reflects on her career and the challenges that must be met for the field to become more inclusive and reflective of 21st century...
    • Contributor: White, Marilyn M. - Saylor, Nicole
    • Date: 2023-08-16
  • Film, Video
    Conversation with Yuri Bukovynets of Hudaki Village Band Watch a conversation with The Hudaki Village Band, who is made up of nine master musicians from the Ukrainian Carpathians. In the Maramures region, a mountainous area of Southwest Ukraine on the border with Romania and Hungary, village musicians are called hudaki. Various ethnic musical influences make the traditional music multifaceted and unique. Archaic Slavic vocal traditions, Romanian melodies, Jewish rhythms and Romany temperament...
    • Contributor: Winick, Stephen - Bukovynets, Yuri
    • Date: 2023-08-02
  • Film, Video
    Hudaki Village Band, Music from the Heart of Ukraine The Hudaki Village Band is made up of nine master musicians from the Ukrainian Carpathians. In the Maramures region, a mountainous area of Southwest Ukraine on the border with Romania and Hungary, village musicians are called hudaki. Various ethnic musical influences make the traditional music multifaceted and unique.Archaic Slavic vocal traditions, Romanian melodies, Jewish rhythms and Romany temperament blend together in a local cross...
    • Contributor: Hudaki Village Band
    • Date: 2023-08-02
  • Film, Video
    Teaching Culture, Teaching Culturally: The Significance of Folklife Education in the Schools Folklorists Paddy Bowman and Lisa Rathje from Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education present an overview of folklore in K-12 education in the United States.
    • Contributor: Rathje, Lisa - Bowman, Paddy - Groce, Nancy
    • Date: 2023-07-28
  • Film, Video
    Ali Doğan Gönültaş Quartet Ali Doğan Gönültaş is a Kurdish musician born in Turkey. A graduate of Kocaeli University in both archaeology and communications, he started his professional music career by founding the band Ze Tijê; the group has since released two albums and has performed hundreds of concerts in Turkey. Ali's oral history and field research, which he began in 2007, has led to the 2022 album...
    • Contributor: Ali Doğan Gönültaş Quartet
    • Date: 2023-07-12
  • Film, Video
    A Conversation with Ali Doğan Gönültaş Quartet Watch a conversation with the musicians of Ali Doğan Gönültaş Quartet.
    • Contributor: Ali Doğan Gönültaş Quartet - Winick, Stephen
    • Date: 2023-07-12
  • Film, Video
    Rewriting America: Alessandro Portelli The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress hosted a one-day symposium bringing together the contemporary perspectives of public scholars, documentary producers and curators on the legacy of the Federal Writers' Project (1935-39). The event focused attention on the ways in which the Library's extraordinary archival collection of materials continues to inform and inspire public outreach and interdisciplinary scholarship in fields ranging from...
    • Contributor: Portelli, Alessandro
    • Date: 2023-06-16