Events, , , ,

New York Folklore Events and Opportunities

Mid-Atlantic Folklorists’ Retreat and New York Folk Arts Roundtable, May 23-25, 2012

“Sustaining Culture: A Regional Conversation,” will bring together folk and traditional arts practitioners, professionals and enthusiasts from the mid-Atlantic region and New England. The meeting includes professional development workshops, a conversation with local cultural activists, documentary film screening, and field trips, along with the opportunity to meet informally with your peers. Public sector and academic folklorists, community scholars, tradition bearers, students, and others interested in traditional culture are welcome to attend. Over 75 participants are expected, so don’t miss this opportunity to network!

A Call for Presentations — Music of the Erie Canal Symposium – November 2-3, 2012

The New York Folklore Society, in conjunction with the Erie Canal Museum, will be hosting a public symposium about the Music of the Erie Canal on November 2 and 3, 2012. We invite presentations, papers, and demonstrations on the Music of the Erie Canal. Possible themes include songs and the folk process; the creation of community; archives and collections; popular music of the Canal; and the Erie Canal as presented in music education, but we are open to other potential themes as well. Papers and presentations should be no more than 20 minutes in length; performances, demonstrations or lecture-demonstrations should be no more than 30 minutes in length. Poster presentations and other presentation formats will also be considered.

Community Cultural Documentation for Schenectady and the Mohawk Valley

A collaborative project of the New York Folklore Society and the Schoharie River Center, with support from the William Gundry Broughton Charitable Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts

The New York Folklore Society is pleased to announce that it will be launching an ongoing out-of-school documentation program for Schenectady-area teens. If you are between the ages of 12 and 18 and are interested in exploring your community’s history and culture, and would like to learn real-life skills of interviewing, video and audio documentation, this program is for you!

Please call the New York Folklore Society at (518) 346-7008 or send an E-mail to receive updates and further information.

Discovering Community Institute for Educators, A Program of the Vermont Folklife Center

The Discovering Community Summer Institute offers educators the opportunity to explore the power of field research as a means to facilitate student engagement with their home communities.

Over the course of an intensive, week-long program participants will work with cultural researchers, documentary media specialists, artists, and fellow educators in a learning environment that models an ethnographic approach to community enquiry. The Institute brings together place as the context, sustainability as the goal, and service-learning as the strategy.