Bookmarks (6)

According to artist Victor Sitali, stories begin in the eye. “It’s always from the eye. It starts right there. And then you start to widen out and see the whole story.” On that summer day, Sitali, a featured participant of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s United Arab Emirates program, led a sketching workshop for visitors. We sat down to draw—what else—a human eye, equipped with...

Leer este artículo en español Our staff is mourning the loss of María Catalina Robles Izquierdo, renowned Afro-Peruvian musician and music educator. She passed away on November 26. Born and raised into a prominent Black musical family in Lima, “Cata” was one of the most visible Black, female, LGBTQ percussion masters in Peru. Her career spanned over two decades of practicing, creating, and transmitting...

Spoken-Word Performance Maitha Al Suwaidi on the Crossroads Stage, July 4, 2022 | Read transcription “Every poem tells a different experience, a different part of me.” Maitha Al Suwaidi closed a well-worn journal and waved goodbye to the group of Smithsonian Folklife Festival attendees in her writing workshop. In an hour, she would perform her poetry on the Crossroads Stage, but for the moment,...

For Sunny Jain, it seems that capturing the American immigrant experience through sound is a constant well of inspiration. With his musical project Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East, he does so with multilingual lyrics, intercontinental percussion, and a genre-bending energy suitable for a rowdy dance party or a warm Friday evening on the National Mall. At the 2022 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Jain’s ensemble consisted...

On the evening of June 25, the sounds of Puerto Rican plena, bomba, and Afro-Latin jazz echoed from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s Ralph Rinzler Stage, as dozens of stellar musicians from Puerto Rico, New York, and California gathered to celebrate the life and the loves of Héctor René “Tito” Matos Otero. The concert traced and interpreted the many aesthetics of plena, an Afro-Puerto Rican...

Founded in 2010 by chef José Andrés, World Central Kitchen provides meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises while working to build resilient food systems with locally led solutions. The not-for-profit organization has served more than 70 million fresh meals to people impacted by natural and other disasters around the world. In 2019, chef Elyssa Kaplan first joined World Central Kitchen’s Relief...