Festival visitors walk across the alfombra de aserrín (sawdust carpet) created by a collective of D.C.-area Central American artists Viajeros de las Americas at the 2017 On the Move program.
Photo by Sojin Kim
D.C. street artists CHELOVE and MASPAZ lead a visitor activity at the 2017 On the Move program.
Photo by Josh Weilepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
Festival visitor language activity at the 2016 On the Move program.
Photo by Josh Weilepp, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives
For a third year, the Folklife Festival explored how we experience migration in our everyday lives.
Visitors joined us for conversations about the role of creativity in making place and community on shifting ground. This cross-cultural, interdisciplinary space presented discussions, musical presentations, and live interviews by media hosts with local cultural producers, Armenian and Catalan participants, and international artists from related Smithsonian initiatives.
At the Ateneu Exchange of the Catalonia program, we addressed how new and changing traditions reflect increasingly diverse communities. The Hyurasenyak stage in the Armenia program featured Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience, a series highlighting ways in which immigrants around the world thrive in new communities, despite genocide or other violent conflicts, by drawing on their heritage.
Video: On the Move at the 2017 Folklife Festival
For over fifty years, the Folklife Festival has presented programs featuring the diverse experiences and cultural dynamism that emerge from the movement of people to and around the United States. Through this and other research-based initiatives, the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage focuses attention on how migration both unsettles and energizes tradition and social life.
The American Anthropological Association’s initiative World on the Move: 100,000 Years of Human Migration promotes balanced and nuanced scholarship about migration and displacement. With programs built on multiple platforms, AAA engages the public and policy makers in discussions that incorporate historical and critical understandings of human movements, what causes them, and the impact they have on communities and individuals. This Anthro Life, in collaboration with AAA, produced content from the 2018 Festival for podcast episodes.
Video: A Visual Introduction to World on the Move
2017 Folklife Festival
2016 Folklife Festival
Where do you call home? How many times have you moved? What languages do you use in your household?
If you don’t know what your history is, if you are denied that history, a portion of you is missing.
We all speak, and language—the languages of our homes and families, our daily conversations with friends...
In the face of colonization, migration, and other forces that cause people to leave home...
In many ways, the 2016 Folklife Festival represented a rallying cry, an alliance, a remarkable display of kinship and respect.
In this discussion, musicians from the Armenia and Catalonia programs explored how their transnational experiences shape their musical practice and expressions. The session featured Arto Tunçboyaciyan, leader of the Armenian Navy Band, who is based in Turkey and the United States; and Yacine Belahcene, leader of Yacine and the Oriental Groove, who migrated from Algeria to Catalonia. This conversation was moderated by Betto Arcos, independent radio producer, The Cosmic Barrio.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association.
The Armenian American Diaspora(s) are made up of several waves of migration. This session explored the legacy of Armenians in America and Armenian involvement in humanitarian efforts around the world today. Participants included historian and the author of Armenians in America: A 400-year Heritage, Hayk Demoyan; Armenian American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and co-founder of Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Noubar Afeyan; and President of the Board of the Near East Foundation Shant Mardirossian. This discussion was moderated by Jim Deutsch, curator, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
Survival is the singular focus for those displaced by genocide, war crimes, or other violence. Traditional craft is proven to play a role in healing trauma and also provides a livelihood that can provide financial security in unfamiliar environments. Syrian Armenian embroiderers Maral Sheuhmelian-Berberian, Houri Iyjian, and Ayda Sandourian discussed the role craft has played in their personal and family histories, from surviving genocide to leaving Aleppo and settling in Yerevan. This discussion was moderated by Adam Gamwell, podcast host/producer, This Anthro Life.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
This session considered the potential connections and related meanings among two spring festival traditions, one practiced in Catalonia, the other in Central America (and now the United States), involving the creation of decorative ground coverings made of natural materials. In Catalonia, these are called catifes de flors, in Central America alfombra de asserín. This discussion was moderated by Olivia Cadaval, curator emeritus, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association.
How does language shape the sustainability of culture and identity in migrant communities? What are the pressures that threaten language sustainability when people are forced to leave their communities of origin? What are some strategies for preserving language?
This session explored these questions through conversation with Armenian program participants and representatives of the D.C.-based Mayan League, an organization working to sustain Mayan culture, communities, and lands. Participants included Syrian Armenian artisan Ayda Sandourian; Levon Avdoyan, an Armenia and Georgia area specialist at the Library of Congress; and Alejandro Santiago González (Maya Ixil) and Mercedes M. Say Chaclan (Maya K’iche’) of the Mayan League. The discussion was moderated by Mary S. Linn, curator of cultural and linguistic revitalization, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
Music is one of the human expressions where rootedness and distant influences can be readily identified. Kumera Genet, D.C.-based musician, youth educator, and community organizer, led a conversation with Arto Tunçboyaciyan, a renowned composer, multi-instrumentalist, and leader of the Armenian Navy Band. Their discussion explored how heritage, migration, and exile shape creative practices, and the way Armenian musical traditions have influenced and been themselves transformed through transnational experiences.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
A source of sustenance and the centerpiece of social gatherings, food can function as a touchstone to heritage, a form of expression and communication, and as an avenue for improving livelihoods. Andy Shallal, D.C.-based artist, activist, and entrepreneur (owner of Busboys & Poets), led a conversation on this topic with Armenian and U.S.-based food entrepreneurs whose businesses have been shaped by contemporary migrations caused by conflict and war. Panelists included Antranik Kilislian of Abu Hakob, a family-owned restaurant that moved from Aleppo to Yerevan in 2014; Noobtsaa Philip Vang, founder of D.C.-based Foodhini; and Liana Aghajanian, Detroit-based journalist and producer of the Dining in Diaspora blog.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
This session featured discussions and demonstrations exploring manifestations of regional culture and spirituality through distinct musical heritages. It is moderated by Daniel Sheehy, ethnomusicologist and curator/director emeritus of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. It included presentations by Juan Batista Serviole and Francisco Batista Clota, musicians steeped in Romani heritage and performers of rumba catalana, which draws from Romani musical expressions. It also included Girish Khyapa and Rabi Mondal (Rabi Das Baul), who are baul singers associated with a spiritual movement in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal whose devotion is expressed in the songs of itinerant musicians. Baul songs have influenced Bengali culture, and they were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.
This session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. The baul musicians attended the Festival as part of the Communities Connecting Heritage cultural exchange, funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by World Learning.
The Armenian American Diaspora(s) are made up of several waves of migration. This session explored the legacy of Armenians in America and Armenian involvement in humanitarian efforts around the world today. Participants included historian and the author of Armenians in America: A 400-year Heritage, Hayk Demoyan; Armenian American entrepreneur, philanthropist, and co-founder of Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Noubar Afeyan; and President of the Board of the Near East Foundation Shant Mardirossian. This discussion was moderated by Jim Deutsch, curator, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
The session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association. It was part of the series Cultures of Survival: From Displacement to Resilience supported by the ANCA Endowment Fund #KeepThePromise and Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
How are culture, identity, and community learned and expressed through the body? How does migration heighten, reinforce, or challenge the specificity of how our physical movements and interactions shape a sense of belonging or alienation? In this session, Mariano Barolomeu, multimedia journalist at Voice of America, led a discussion with recent initiates and master teachers of the Catalan tradition of human towers and the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira (represented by D.C.-based Mestre Bomba of Capoeira Barro Vermelho).
This session was co-presented with the American Anthropological Association.
Representing the dynamic landscape of D.C. area cultural and creative enterprises, the arts collective Soul & Ink activated the Folklife Festival with live screen printing. Visitors customized original posters printed on site by this crew of artists committed to art for social change.
2017 Folklife Festival
2016 Folklife Festival
Where do you call home? How many times have you moved? What languages do you use in your household?
If you don’t know what your history is, if you are denied that history, a portion of you is missing.
We all speak, and language—the languages of our homes and families, our daily conversations with friends...
In the face of colonization, migration, and other forces that cause people to leave home...
In many ways, the 2016 Folklife Festival represented a rallying cry, an alliance, a remarkable display of kinship and respect.
