Organization
Since
1972, Northwest Folklife has been helping Puget
Sound residents share the music, dance and traditional
arts of their ethnic and cultural communities.
Northwest
Folklife's EIN is 91-1311548
Northwest Folklife's UBI is 600-587-528 |
| Mission
Northwest
Folklife creates opportunities for individuals
and communities of the Pacific Northwest to celebrate,
share and sustain the vitality of folk, ethnic
and traditional arts for present and future generations.
Northwest Folklife carries out its mission in
a variety of ways, most notably through the annual
production of the free Northwest Folklife Festival.
Northwest Folklife describes its core values as
follows:
-
Northwest Folklife believes that the arts revitalize
people and communities. Northwest Folklife is
dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage
and its continued growth and development.
-
Northwest Folklife understands that everyone
is a bearer of folk arts and that it is as important
to participate in the arts as it is to observe
them.
-
Northwest Folklife encourages communities to
share their cultural arts believing that interaction
with new audiences enriches the community as
much as the audience. When people share aspects
of their culture, opportunities are created
to dissolve misunderstandings, break down stereotypes
and increase respect for one another.
-
Northwest Folklife relies on the diverse communities
of the Pacific Northwest to inspire programs.
Northwest Folklife collaborates with these communities
to develop public presentations of their culture.
Northwest
Folklife is recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt
501(c)3 corporation. It is registered with the Secretary
of State of the State of Washington.
Return
to top of page |
| Northwest
Folklife Programs |
| Northwest
Folklife's programs have developed directly out
of the needs of the communities with which we work.
They can be found in schools, public housing communities
and community centers. They are designed to enhance
the understanding and importance of our cultural
heritage. Traditional arts express cultural identity
and provide a tool to help understand community
diversity. The scope of our programs includes: Northwest
Folklife Festival, Northwest Folklife Recordings,
Education Programs, Folklore
Research and Consulting Services.
|
| Northwest
Folklife Festival, held over Memorial
Day weekend, is one of the largest, varied and
most vibrant free folklife celebrations in North
America. Produced by Northwest Folklife and Seattle
Center, it hosts more than 7,000 participants,
27 stages and venues, roughly 1000 performances,
and an audience of approximately 250,000 at the
74-acre Seattle Center. Participants immerse themselves
in four days of music and dance performances,
visual arts and folklore exhibits, symposia, workshops,
craft and cooking demonstrations and films.
Education
Programs of Northwest Folklife bring the
folk arts to children, their families, and the
professionals who serve them. The folk arts are
an essential aspect of passing on cultural values.
These programs teach individuals ways of engaging
in, responding to, and understanding the world
around us.
Folklife
in the Schools is a comprehensive folk
arts service for schools, educators, and communities
offering classes, curricula, assembly programs,
and teacher training services from culture bearers
and master artists from a wide range of traditions.
You can find the Folklife in the Schools
Artist Roster here.
Consulting
Services are designed to enhance understanding
about the important role of ethnic, folk, and
traditional arts in our community and to bring
our knowledge of diversity and community issues
to businesses, schools, communities, organizations,
festivals and individuals. Northwest Folklife
draws on its extensive network of community
leaders, educators, artists and specialists
in the field for these services.
Folklore
Research and Projects consists of fieldwork
and planning within a diverse group of local
ethnic communities. We meet with community leaders
and advisory committees to identify folk art
masters, community rituals, and group capabilities
and to devise ways in which that community can
promote an understanding of itself within the
region. The outcome can take any number of forms
including workshops, concerts, exhibits, tours
and special events. Northwest Folklife has received
grants from the National Endowment for the Arts,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the
Lila Wallace - Reader's Digest Fund, Washington
State Arts Commission, Washington Commission
for the Humanities, King County Arts Commission,
Seattle Arts Commission, foundations and companies
such as Boeing and SAFECO for its work with
many regional ethnic communities.
Return
to top of page |
 |
Northwest
Folklife Recordings developed out of 25
years of recording special concerts at the Festival,
from folklorists working in the field and from
the renowned Ethnomusicology Archives of the University
of Washington.
The
label features singular chronicles such as Washington
Fiddlers (Volume I and II) - a compilation
of artists from the Northwest old-time fiddle
community; Ki Ho'Alu - Seattle Style Hawai'ian
Slack Key Guitar - the introduction of
this popular Hawai'ian hybrid into mainstream
music from their Festival performances; and Say
a Song - Joe Heaney. The legendary Irish
musician is the debut subject of Northwest Archives,
a new label of selected recordings from the University
of Washington collection.
Also
on the Archives label:
Recordando a Venezuela by Rafael Angel
y los Hermanos Aparicios and Under the
Earth Tones: Ambient Didgeridoo Meditations
by the Didgeri Dudes with Stuart Dempster.
For
more information about Northwest Folklife, please
email, call or write:
Northwest
Folklife
305 Harrison Street
Seattle WA 98109-4623
Phone: 206-684-7300
|
HISTORY
The
organization now known as "Northwest Folklife" was
created informally in 1971 as a joint project between
the Seattle Folklore Society, the National Park
Service, the National Folklife Festival Association
and the City of Seattle, to produce a festival of
traditional and ethnic arts in Seattle as a part
of a program of the National Park Service for urban
outreach, being coordinated by the National Folk
Festival Association (now the National Council for
the Traditional Arts). The first festival was produced
over Memorial Day weekend, May, 1972, by the Seattle
Folklore Society with a $6,000 grant from the City
of Seattle, and the contribution of the facilities
of the Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's
Fair which had become an agency of the City of Seattle
and a major Seattle urban park. The concept was
to provide a high quality public forum where the
traditional and ethnic communities and artists of
the Northwest Region of the National Park Service
(Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Western
Montana) could present their music and dance performances
and crafts. The theme was presenting what people
"make for their own use and do for their own entertainment."
All performers were asked to contribute their participation
in an event with no admission charge as an opportunity
for community celebration and sharing. The first
Festival presented over 300 performers to a large,
enthusiastic audience over the three day weekend,
and was perceived as a successful and needed addition
to Northwest arts programs. The promoters of the
Festival and the Seattle Center decided to make
it an annual event.
The Northwest Regional Folklife Festival Association
was incorporated in January, 1973, as a Washington
non-profit corporation to conduct the annual "Northwest
Regional Folklife Festival." It had a Board of
Directors composed of representatives from the
Seattle Folklife Society, National Park Service,
and City of Seattle, who were designated a certain
number of Board positions each, and a number of
additional Board members representing traditional
and ethnic arts groups in the Northwest. In 1981,
the Festival hired its first full-time staff member.
Until then, the Festival had been produced primarily
by a volunteer staff with a Festival Director
hired on a part time basis. Until 1984, the Festival
was produced by the Seattle Folklore Society,
which had tax-exempt status and experience. In
1984, the organization was reincorporated as "Northwest
Folklife Festival" under a charter qualifying
for federal tax exempt status. Tax exempt status
was obtained in 1986. Northwest Folklife then
took over full production responsibilities for
the Festival.
Starting in the early 1980's,
the organization, now with a full-time staff,
began expanding the scope of its activities beyond
simply producing the Northwest Folklife Festival.
In recognition of this broadening of scope, the
name of the organization was changed to "Northwest
Folklife."
During the 1980's additional
staff were hired on a seasonal basis to handle
programming, vendors, and public relations. Staff
made significant improvements in both the administrative
and artistic management of the Festival, bringing
in new sponsors, starting the "Friends of Folklife"
program, and initiating an organized outreach
to include members of an increasingly diverse
regional population in the organization's programs.
Activities were expanded to include participation
in festivals in other parts of the Northwest,
helping other communities with traditional and
ethnic arts programs, sponsoring year around traditional
and ethnic arts events, developing the most extensive
database of traditional and ethnic artists in
the Pacific Northwest, and becoming the most visible
advocate of traditional and ethnic arts in the
region.
Today, the four-day Festival attracts an audience
of about 250,000 visitors and has over 7,000 volunteer
performers and 1,300 volunteers. Northwest Folklife
employs a year-round staff of 14.
There is no question that the
Festival has stimulated interest and activity
in traditional arts in the Northwest. It has become
a major focal point for many traditional and ethnic
performing groups and communities. Since the first
Festival, many other smaller but similar festivals
have been conducted throughout the Northwest by
civic organizations, ethnic communities, and governmental
recreational agencies, many with assistance from
Northwest Folklife. All of these events have focused
attention on the traditional and ethnic resources
of the area and, more importantly, have introduced
many people to traditional arts activities they
can do themselves. Keeping in mind that the performers
and participants volunteer their participation
and that the Festival now has about three times
the performance venues it had in 1972, in 1994,
it had to turn away more performers than it presented
at the first Festival in 1972 just for a lack
of space!
In 1999, Northwest Folklife was
selected as a Local Legacy by the Library of Congress
in celebration of its 200th Anniversary. A record
of the organization's proud history is now a part
of the national memory!
|
|
