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Local fans of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival take note: the dates and themes for this year's festival were released today. From Wednesday, June 24, through Sunday, June 28, and again from Wednesday, July 1, through Sunday, July 5, you'll be able to explore the following along the National Mall: "Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture," "Las Américas: Un Mundo Musical/The Americas: A Musical World," and "Wales Smithsonian Cymru." So expect plenty of staged readings of historical African American texts, mariachi, marimba and chanchona musical performances, and um, Welsh cooking (ick?), this summer.
Smithsonian Folklife Themes, Dates Announced
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Rarebit!!
Welsh cooking (ick?)? I'll remind you that the Welsh are the largest consumers of Mr. Brains Faggots®, a fact that I find, like most UK cuisine, repulsive yet irresistable.
Some great quotes in that article...
Her husband Fred added: "It's unfair because faggots were a British delicacy long before any of the others.
"The great British faggot is full of flavour and a great belly warmer at this time of year."
at least they're not trying to pass "texas" or "nasa" off as cultures this year...
As the curator for the NASA program at last summer's Folklife Festival, I was aware that many visitors might be wondering why NASA was being featured as one of the “cultures” at the Festival. Some of our previous Folklife Festival programs have also examined other occupational groups that are not ordinarily regarded as “folk.” These have included American Trial Lawyers in 1986, White House Workers in 1992, Smithsonian Workers in 1996, Masters of the Building Arts in 2001, and Forest Service, Culture, and Community in 2005. As folklorists, our approach is that all occupational groups—be they actuaries, biologists, cowboys, dishwashers, engineers, firefighters, gaffers, and haberdashers—have their own set of skills, specialized knowledge, and codes of behavior that not only distinguish them from other occupational groups, but that also meet their needs as a community. The people who work for NASA—even though they may be engineers, scientists, and administrators—are no exception. For more specific examples about NASA culture, you may want to look at the preview video from last summer at http://www.folklife.si.edu/festival/2008/Videos.html
I'm offended that you use the phrase "culture" and "trial lawyers" in the same breath. Because whenever I hear the words "trial lawyers" I reach for my gun.
Glad Smithsonian considers all career occupations a form of "folk culture." Looking forward to next year's festival where retired porn fluffers, hen teasers, and colonic irrigation technicians will be plying their trade amid the soothing sounds of saxophones, barnyard animal noises, and screaming.
IMGoph just got served, y'all!
served, my ass! what i want to know is why the folklife festival people are spending so much time trolling dcist? do we threaten them? :)
And with this, the word "trolling" finally lost all meaning . . .
They're responding to criticisms (serious or not) that you and other raised with reasonable, informed explanations. Explaining their work, and why they do it, is part of their job. You don't have to buy their arguments, but calling it "trolling" is absolutely absurd.
and with this, emoticons like :) finally lost all meaning . . .
look, i understand and appreciate what they're doing. i ended my little "rant" with a smiley to indicate it was all in good fun. guess that was lost in translation. my bad.
No, no, I got that your tone was light. I'm just getting extremely tired of seeing "troll" and "trolling" used as all-purpose stand-ins for "commenters and comments that disagree with me/a particular political position/etc." On some blogs you see nearly every single dissenting voice or newly arriving commenter shouted down as a troll as soon as they make the host or the resident commenters the least bit uncomfortable or annoyed. As it's a definite pet peeve of mine, I triggered off your use of that word rather than any perceived "ranting" tone.
nate: my apologies. you're right, i shouldn't have used the word troll. i'll make sure to be more careful of stuff like that from here on. language can be such a prickly thing...
welsh lamb with mint sauce! Smooth Brains!!!!!
Contruction to start Monday so tents can take out families by May.
Honestly, I wish they'd just skip it for a year to allow the grass to recover. The quality of recent Folklife Festivals seems to be on the decline lately, and it's always too hot, anyway.
For christ's sake, they just got through a four year long "musica latina" theme, now they go right back to it. WTF? And for the record, 95% of what they considered Musica Latina seemed to solely include Musica Mexicano. I don't remember ever seeing much samba, bossa nova, or tango.
I suspect with this one, we'll continue to see overemphasis on a few musical traditions. Will they have Jamaican reggae? Haitian calypso? Canadian scruffy indie kid rock? Aren't those the music of "the Americas"?
What do you expect when your primary donor is Taco Bell, Ltd? Just be glad they didn't include a special choral tribute to musical fruit.
Me thinks their music needle is stuck. At this point,I'll settle for Sounds of the 70's featuring Seals and Croft.
I remember listening to Colombian Llanero music at the festival a few years ago with much delight.
The organizers have actually been very good about showing that Latin music is much more than salsa, merengue, tango and bossanova -- where else would you hear about the trova, the bambuco, the marinera, the porro, the joropo or the carnavalito than either there or hanging out with your local folk dance weenies?
Damn the haters. Folklife is always one of the high points of the DC calendar year. Where else can you find a two week long totally free festival downtown?
Thought I would weigh in here as the Curator of the upcoming Welsh program. I agree UK food is not the most exciting in the world, and having lived there awhile I know that from experience. But we will try our best to have some good food (and Welsh beer!)... but everyone needs to realize that our concessions are often serving several thousand people a day, in a temporary location, and trying to turn a profit that goes toward supporting this free event. Also, right off the bat, there is no Welsh restaurant or caterer in the DC area so we will probably be working with someone non-Welsh but in close contact with a Welsh food consultant. And, since the sub-theme of the Welsh program is sustainability, we will also be working on sustainable containers, food sourced locally (except for some Welsh food products available in the US that we would like people to know about), and that sort of thing. So, I hope you skeptics will take all this in mind and give us the benefit of the doubt. Organizing the Festival and getting it all "right" is a huge undertaking; we do the best we can. Thanks.
What are the chances of getting Super Furry Animals to play the Mall?
Go, Betty! See you on the Mall!
Wales Curator a.k.a. Betty, I don't think anyone has shown skepticism on the quality of Welsh cuisine, excepting Sommer's "ick?" comment in the post body. I will personally submit that Monkeyrotica is quite the fan of Welsh cuisine and culture and, little known fact, can sing "Men of Harlech" to the second verse, by heart (the Zulu version, that is).
I stand by my statement notwithstanding that Monkey called UK food "repulsive yet irresistible." Translation: heck yeah, he's eating it!
hey, no need to apologize before anything has even happened yet. you just make me think i should be looking for something bad to happen.
best of luck dealing with all the limitations...
Are you going to feature the new Doctor Who and Torchwood?!
A free annual two week festival with performers, exhibitions and music from around the world. People, what are you complaining about?! You don't have to like every theme to have fun. Finding sponsors so it's FREE surely limits the themes anyhow. Considering the thousands of hours of work, including volunteer time, we should be grateful.
Wish our curators had corrected the cranks a little more. For example, Welsh men's choirs sing beautifully. If that sounds boring, just check them out this summer. (I never thought I'd like mariachi music but went to that show twice.) Welsh culture, language, etc. has been more influential than most Americans realize, its survival despite English suppression is amazing.
To the crank re Texas: The rich mix of musical traditions in Texas made for great music and dancing. Tejano, Czech, mariachi, East Texas cajun, Texas-style blues, different types of country and swing and rock much more. Will long be one of my favorites. Besides, there's long been an American state or region as part of the festival. Stopping cranking and go two-stepping.
I'll try that again: Stop cranking and go two-stepping!
(CrookedRiverWoman needs a day off.)
wtf is "cranking"?
Being a crank.
ok, what's a "crank" then? you can't define a word with itself.
A movie with Jason Statham. Crank.
Wiki says The "Cawl" is the most popular Welsh
Dish. It's soup made with pig liver as the main
ingredient. This is cut into pieces and boiled
with cabbage and leek for about half an hour.
Then sliced potatoes and spices are added.
Hmmm.