Speakers Program (cosponsored by the U.S. Information Ser- 

 vice) and delivered the keynote talk at the American Studies 

 Association of Taiwan: "American Popular Culture and its 

 Impact Abroad." He also spoke to students and faculty at the 

 New National College of the Arts and met with various 

 museum directors and colleagues in Taiwan. 



Center for Folklife Programs and 

 Cultural Studies 



Richard Kurin, Director 



Fueled by the national and worldwide growth of self- 

 consciousness about community-based cultural representation 

 and production, the Center's operations evolve, and our rep- 

 ertoire of activities is expanding. We encourage exemplary 

 tradition bearers to maintain and extend their cultures, the 

 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall perhaps 

 being the most visible and dramatic illustration of this effort. 

 The rwo-week 1997 Festival hosted more than 800,000 

 visitors. Cultural vitaliry was strikingly demonstrated at this 

 year's Festival with programs about the Mississippi Delta, 

 African immigrants, and sacred music and song. "The Missis- 

 sippi Delta" showed that the mighty river defined a region 

 that is not only agriculturally rich with black, fertile soil, but 

 also culturally rich, in spite of economic hardships that much 

 of the Delta's population has lived with for generations. The 

 program on the Mall opened with speakers that included 

 Mississippi's First Lady, Pat Fordice, and Louisiana's Lt. 

 Governor Kathleen Blanco, and for the next two weeks the 

 program addressed life in the Delta through four major areas: 

 home, work, play, and worship. Discussions and presentations 

 by participants from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and 

 Tennessee included gardening, home crafts, foodways, catfish 

 and cotton farming, hunting and fishing, oratory skills, wor- 

 ship crafts, gospel, and Easter Rock. The Delta Dance Hall 

 featured the music that had its roots in that region — blues, 

 rockabilly, and Dixieland jazz — and included a special eve- 

 ning performance and interview by R&B master Rufus 

 Thomas and his band. "The Mississippi Delta" program broke 

 many stereotypes, among which, as seen by thousands of 

 viewers of NBC's Today Show, included interviews by mem- 

 bers of the Chinese community in the Delta and their presen- 

 tations of wok barbecue and a southern breakfast, 

 Chinese-style. The Mississippi Delta program will be restaged 

 in Greenville, Mississippi, and portions of it were brought to 

 Monroe, Louisiana, in September. 



"Sacred Sounds: Belief & Society" riveted audiences and 

 kindled extended discussions with religious tradition bearers 

 and social activists about their belief systems, musical expres- 

 sions of their faiths, the role of sacred songs in social strug- 

 gles, and comparisons with other religious and musical 



traditions. From the intensity of feeling expressed in the 

 songs and running -circle-dance of the women and men of the 

 International Christian Church of Pietersburg, South Africa, 

 to the solemn readings of biblical passages by the male song- 

 leaders of the Old Regular Baptists from Kentucky coal- 

 mining country in the southern Appalachian Mountains, 

 audiences were treated to a powerful and moving lineup of 

 sacred sound traditions. From Jerusalem, Palestinian Sunni 

 Muslim chanters shared the stage with Israeli Sephardic Jews, 

 and the large sounds from the choir of St. Augustine Catholic 

 Church in Washington, D.C., presented a gospel contrast to 

 the sweet-sounding voices of the local Seven Sons gospel 

 quartet. Mountain bluegrass from Elaine Purkey and Friends 

 and the Black women a capella singers from Sweet Honey In 

 The Rock showed where sacred sounds cross over into every- 

 day social struggles. Along with traditional Yoruba praise 

 songs, Shinto traditional chants, rap-gospel by Brothers Inc. 4 

 Da Lord, and Karuk music of Nancy Richardson, visitors ex- 

 perienced the special artistry and passion of sacred sounds 

 communicated by individuals and groups. 



The culmination of four years of documentation and plan- 

 ning resulted in the successful program, "African Immigrant 

 Folklife in Washington, D.C.: Building & Bridging Com- 

 munities." The program was a collaboration between the Cen- 

 ter and community scholars originally from all parts of the 

 African continent, now living in the metropolitan Washing- 

 ton, D.C., area. The program had six theme areas: A large 

 music and dance tent hosted groups who played music rang- 

 ing from North African rai to South African township music, 

 and on July 3, Ghanaians from all parts of the United States 

 and Canada gathered to witness a durbar — installment of a 

 leader for the Asante peoples in the United States. At the 

 "Foodways and Home Life" area Ethiopian coffee ceremonies 

 were scheduled back to back with Kenyan cooking. The 

 "Enterprise" area housed craftspeople such as a Senegalese 

 glass painter and Malian woodcarver, as well as businesses that 

 included hairbraiding salons and dressmaking shops. The 

 "Palaver Place" served as a community hall where performan- 

 ces included a Somali women's social dance and an Ebo girl's 

 coming-of-age ceremony. At the "Teaching and Learning Cul- 

 ture" area, children and parents learned Sierra Leone Creole 

 and had African geography lessons. The "Community Talk" 

 stage was designed as a talk-radio venue where participants 

 told stories about their immigration experiences. In the 

 aftermath of this program, community scholars and many 

 participants are working toward forming their own not-for- 

 profit organization to present cultural programs and further 

 document cultural traditions. 



This year's third annual Friends of the Festival Ralph 

 Rinzler Memorial Concert celebrated the revival of old-time 

 Southern music and dance. Featuring Mike Seeger and the 

 New Lost City Ramblers, Wade and Julia Mamer, and the 

 Original Fat City String Band, along with other musicians, 

 dancers, and callers, the program traced the revival of 

 Southern traditional music over the past forty years and of the 



49 



