Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

Vahagn working on a clay jug. (Photo by Narek Harutyunyan, My Armenia Program)

The Potter's Wheel: An Inexhaustible Source of Energy

Master potter Vahagn Hambardzumyan is among those who carry on Syunik, Armenia's rich pottery traditions with a modern touch.

Anto Kilislian prepares lahmajoun at the 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. (Photo by Sonya Pencheva, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

Food and Longing in the Armenian Diaspora

Armenians both borrowed from and contributed to the culinary lexicons of the regions they inhabit

Photo courtesy of Alicia D. Williams

How Alicia D. Williams Is Reviving Storytelling for Black Children

Williams wanted a different story for her daughter—and for herself. So, she set out to write it.

Master basket weaver Arthur Petrosyan sits and works on a project. (Photo by Narek Harutyunyan, My Armenia Program)

Travel the Sweetest Route through Vayots Dzor and Syunik, Armenia

Numerous popular traditions regarding beekeeping are associated with the medicinal properties of the use of beeswax. Grandpa Grisha, a beekeeper with 50 years of experience, remembers it all very well.

Barbara Dane with the Chambers Brothers at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. (Photo by Diana Davies, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives)

How Barbara Dane Carries a Proud Tradition of Singing Truth to Power

Barbara Dane’s protest music took her to Mississippi Freedom Schools, free speech rallies at UC Berkeley, and in the coffeehouses where active-duty men and women steered clear of military police and regulations forbidding protests on bases.

Making crates to leave the camp, September 1945, Heart Mountain, Wyoming. (Illustration by Estelle Ishigo, courtesy Estelle Ishigo Collection, Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation. Gift of Bacon Sakatani in Memory of Arthur and Estelle Ishigo)

What They Carried When the Japanese American Incarceration Camps Closed

The closing of the World War II camps marks its seventy-sixth anniversary in 2021.

Black Banjo Reclamation Project founders Hannah Mayree and Carlton “Seemore Love” Dorsey, with banjos made by Brooks Masten of Brooks Banjos in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Avé-Ameenah Long)

A Quest to Return the Banjo to Its African Roots

The Black Banjo Reclamation Project aims to put banjos into the hands of everyday people.

Sasun, a local guide, takes in the view of Mount Ughtasar. (My Armenia Program)

See Armenia Through the Eyes of a Local Guide

The landscape of Armenia is diverse. Often, there are several sub-regions within a single region, each with their own distinct set of tourist destinations

Jim McDowell holds his jug, “Emmett Till.” (Photo By Rimas Zailskas, courtesy of Asheville Made Magazine)

Facing History: Lessons from the Potter’s Wheel

Jim McDowell, known to many simply as “the Black Potter,” is a ceramicist who specializes in stoneware face jugs.

Unearthing a karas (large storage vessel, amphorae) at Trinity Canyon Vineyards. (My Armenia Program )

A Wine Expert's Diary from the Roads of Vayots Dzor, Armenia

Armenia, where the oldest trace of wine production is 6,100 years old, can indeed compete for the title of the “cradle of wine.”

Admas. From left, clockwise: Abegasu Shiota, Henock Temesgen, Tewodros Aklilu, and Yousef Tesfaye. (Photo courtesy of Frederiksberg Records)

Sons of Ethiopia: A Snapshot of Admas and D.C. Music in the 1980s

Admas draws from and rearranges “golden era” Ethiopian music with then-fairly-new synthesizer and drum-machine rhythms.

Zapotec weaver Porfirio Gutiérrez at work in his studio. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

How We Can Travel the World and Share Culture through Craft

The Folklife Festival Marketplace offers authentic craftwork created by artisans representing communities from recent Festival programs: Armenia, Peru, Mexico, and Brazil, along with other countries around the globe

Three of Yosl Cutler’s surviving puppets: two Jewish characters and one Russian. These were constructed circa 1933. (Photo courtesy of the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)

The Life and Death of a Yiddish Puppet Theater

Puppets weren’t a common form of entertainment in Jewish culture.

After composing and transcribing music for my wedding day, Red Baraat was born. Dave Sharma leads the baraat (wedding procession) on dhol, as I walk with my mother, family, and friends. August 27, 2005. (Photo courtesy of Sunny Jain)

The Tradition of Now: Jainism, Jazz, and the Punjabi Dhol Drum

While the originations of the dhol are not known with complete certainty, what is known is that it is a sound that has migrated.

Bright lights and large crowds were ever-present at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Dresden, Germany, 2014. (Photo by Pete Reiniger)

A Taste of the German Christmas Market at Home: Glühwein mit Schuss

Normally at this time of year, the German-speaking lands of Central Europe would be bustling with Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets) or Christkindlmärkte (Christ Child markets), filled with food, drink, good cheer, and other longstanding traditional activities. But nothing seems to be normal in 2020, so almost all of those markets never opened.

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