Weaving by TahNibaa Naataanii
Photo Courtesy of Artist
ON BEHALF of the National Endowment for the Arts, I am delighted to congratulate the 2022 National Heritage Fellows, recipients of the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. These honorees are not only sustaining the cultural history of their art form and of their community, they are also enriching our nation as a whole.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Heritage Fellowships. Each year since 1982, the NEA has honored the important and dynamic role of culture bearers in sharing their art forms, traditions, languages, and histories, while adapting to changing times and circumstances, and passing cultural treasures on to the next generation. We see this in 2022 through the ways master weaver TahNibaa Naataanii mentors, teaches, and interprets the Diné weaving practice, and through the quelbe melodies of Stanley Jacobs which celebrate both old and new traditions of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The heritage we celebrate through the fellowships is a beautiful dimension of our American cultural life, and it is also an important part of advancing equity. Many of our fellows come from historically marginalized communities where arts and cultural practices provide evidence of strength and resilience, are important outlets for freedom of expression, and are core to continued progress. The Excelsior Band is a great example of this. From its founding in 1883, the band remained a solid fortress through the long Jim Crow era in Mobile, Alabama, and is still marching proudly in Mardi Gras parades today. In Hawai’i, foundations for the future are being built by the strong hands of master Hawaiian hale builder, Francis P. Sinenci, who is responsible for many new architectural structures created in the traditional way and is passing this skill to the next generation.
As we emerge from a historic pandemic and significant social challenges, this year’s class of fellows reminds us that even in times of turmoil and unpredictability, our nation’s living heritage never stops being taught and treasured. The artistic contributions of our National Heritage Fellows help us celebrate our diversity while bringing people together, and helping us see our unique gifts and our common humanity.
It is my honor and pleasure to host the film, Roots of American Culture: A Cross-Country Visit with Living Treasures of the Folk and Traditional Arts, featuring the 2022 honorees in the places where they live and practice their art, providing us with a window into their cultural traditions. I’m happy to be part of telling this story. I believe the future is illuminated by these trailblazers, and we will celebrate this milestone with them for years to come!
Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD Chair National Endowment for the Arts
FOR 40 YEARS, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded the National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.
Of the nations that bestow honorifics on their culture bearers, the United States is singular for an approach that matches its motto, e pluribus unum: one nation comprised of many cultures. National Heritage Fellows carry the stories of their peoples—Indigenous, immigrant, migrant, captive, and refugee—across ever-shifting landscapes. They are gifted tradition bearers, stewards, and innovators, and include practitioners whose traditions have emerged relatively recently from distinctly American experiences.
This was as true for the first class of Heritage Fellows in 1982 as it is 40 years later. Indigenous arts like 2022 Fellow Francis Palani Sinenci’s Hawaiian hale buildings, or 1982 Fellow Georgeann Robinson’s Osage ribbonwork, stand alongside immigrant and refugee Heritage Fellows like Serbian tamburitza musician Adam Popovich (1982) and Tibetan singer and dancer Tsering Wangmo Satho (2022). Singer Bessie Jones (1982) gave voice to a multitude of Gullah-Geechee cultural traditions; coastal and Caribbean Black music, dance, and parade traditions are resplendent in the class of 2022.
We might also pause and consider that bluegrass music—a musical tradition that sounds far older than it really is—was barely 40 years old when its visionary creator, Bill Monroe, received a Heritage Fellowship in 1982. 2022 Heritage Fellow Michael Cleveland, born in 1980, was inspired by Monroe’s music and even played with him as a child.
As global ambassadors for American culture, 2022 Heritage Fellows C. Brian Williams, TahNibaa Naataanii, Shaka Zulu, Eva Enciñias, and the Legendary Ingramettes have represented the United States on global stages from Bulgaria to Senegal, Vietnam to South Africa. We are reminded that American identity is comprised of multitudes. We thank the National Heritage Fellows for their service to their communities, our nation, and the world.
Each National Heritage Fellow receives this customdesigned medallion.
Photo by Cheryl T. Schiele
When the NEA National Heritage Fellowships began 40 years ago, then director of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Folk Arts program, Bess Lomax Hawes, envisioned the depth, breadth, and lasting legacy of tradition bearers in America:
“Each year, we will greet, salute, and honor just a few examples of the dazzling array of artistic traditions we have inherited throughout our nation’s fortunate history…. We believe that this can continue far into the future, each year’s group of artists demonstrating yet other distinctive art forms from the American experience.”
Since then, the National Endowment for the Arts has realized this vision, each year since 1982 bringing national attention to the great diversity of folk and traditional artists practicing throughout our country. This once-in-a-lifetime award to individuals recognizes both their artistic excellence as well as their efforts to conserve America’s many cultural traditions for future generations. While some of the more than 450 recipients to date are well known
nationally—such as Los Lobos, Mavis Staples, Michael Flatley, B.B. King, and the quilters of Gee’s Bend—many recipients are best known in their local or cultural communities, where they are lauded as masters of crafts, dance, music, oral traditions, visual arts, and more.
The first class of Heritage Fellows included the blues singer/harmonica player Sonny Terry and his frequent performing partner, guitarist/singer Brownie McGhee, as well as the Mexican American singer Lydia Mendoza, bluegrass musician Bill Monroe, and ornamental ironworker Philip Simmons. Since then, the award has recognized artists representing more than 200 traditional art forms, from Passamaquoddy basketmaking to leatherworking, Cambodian classical dancing to Tejano accordion playing, and so much more.
Various traditions practiced by the National Heritage Fellows are passed down through the generations, conserving cultural heritage, shaping communities, and often bridging original art forms with contemporary expressions. We see this within
families, such as the 2022 Heritage Fellows the Legendary Ingramettes, as they carry on the traditions of their childhood when “Mama” Maggie Ingram and her Ingramettes became Richmond, Virginia’s “First Family of Gospel.” 2020 Heritage Fellow Wayne Valliere (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) upholds the tradition of birchbark canoe building by passing his knowledge along to apprentices and other Native communities. Valliere describes the perseverance of the Anishinaabe in the context of connecting to the past through cultural practices, “Move forward with the knowledge…it’s a feeling of something that’s way greater than myself, I’m just a small part of it.”
All National Heritage Fellowships begin with a nomination, often by someone from the artist’s community, which also includes supporting materials and letters of support. Nominations are reviewed by a panel of experts with a range of experience in the folk and traditional arts, as well as one experienced lay person. The panel’s recommendations are then reviewed by the National Council on the Arts, with the final decision made by the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. The amount of the award started at $10,000 in 1982 and grew to $25,000 in 2009.
The program has expanded in other ways since its inception. Initially an award just for individuals, in 1989, the Black a capella gospel quartet the Fairfield Four became the first group to receive a Heritage Fellowship. Since then, numerous duos and groups have been honored, including Excelsior Band, Roy and PJ Hirabayashi, and Las Tesoros de San Antonio.
In 2000, the NEA added an annual award which honors an advocate in the folk and traditional arts. Named the Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship as a tribute to the former NEA director, this award recognizes an individual who
has made major contributions to the excellence, vitality, and public appreciation of the folk and traditional arts. Chris Strachwitz, record producer and cultural advocate, received the first of these awards. In more recent years, this fellowship has been awarded to folklorist and state park manager Bob Fulcher, Lummi Tribe tradition bearer Pauline Hillaire, and Radio Bilingüe cofounder Hugo N. Morales.
While the National Heritage Fellowships are a central component of the NEA’s support of the folk and traditional arts, the agency also has a long history of providing grants to nonprofit organizations to support projects ranging from festivals to documentary and media projects, exhibitions to educational and apprenticeship programs. The NEA’s investment in a National Folklife Network is currently developing new infrastructure in support of folk and traditional arts in spaces where it does not currently exist. The agency has also played an essential role in the creation and support of folk arts partnerships in all states, territories, and regions of the country, providing opportunities for fieldwork, apprenticeships, and more opportunities for the public to experience and gain an appreciation for our nation’s diverse and ever-growing cultural traditions.
The physical award itself was created using two art forms celebrated during the inaugural year of the NEA National Heritage Fellowships: ornamental iron work based on the work of Philip Simmons from Charleston, South Carolina, and Osage ribbon work based on the work of Georgeann Robinson from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Through this award, the National Endowment for the Arts can both celebrate the richness of our nation’s cultural traditions and honor the immense dedication of the recipients in ensuring these art forms will continue to thrive for years to come.
Charlestown, Indiana T
he tension between tradition and innovation is at the core of bluegrass music, and the fiddle playing of Michael Cleveland exemplifies this musical tug of war. As a boy, Cleveland heard a local fiddler play “Orange Blossom Special,” which sparked a lifelong obsession with the tune that mimics the sound of a train. Cleveland’s improvisational versions push the piece’s descriptive tones and percussive bowing to a new level. With an encyclopedic memory for melodies, and an uncanny intuition for improvisation, Cleveland’s music is both rooted in tradition and fueled by his melodic imagination.
From an early age, Cleveland heard old-time and bluegrass music at local jams and festivals near his hometown of Henryville, Indiana. His grandparents hosted regular bluegrass gatherings at the American Legion, and at age four, he began playing the fiddle. He attended the Kentucky School for the Blind in Louisville, where he learned the Suzuki method of violin. While he practiced the violin at school, he played fiddle at home. Traveling with his grandparents to area bluegrass festivals, he heard many legendary players perform at Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana. At the age of nine, Cleveland got to play with Monroe—himself a recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship in the inaugural class of 1982—at the festival. When Cleveland was 12, he met music historian Dave Samuelson, who recognized the young musician’s interest and talent. Samuelson curated several Braille-labeled tapes for the young musician,
which served as Cleveland’s essential listening guide to bluegrass music. Cleveland’s repertoire and musicianship grew, and in 1993 he played the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards show with the Bluegrass Youth All-Stars.
Cleveland began playing professionally after he graduated from high school, first with Jeff White and later with Dale Ann Bradley and Rhonda Vincent. Since he was young, however, Cleveland had dreamed of leading his own band. In 2006, he formed Flamekeeper, the seven-time recipients of the IBMA’s “Instrumental Group of the Year” award. Flamekeeper includes Josh Richards, Nathan Livers, Jasiah Shrode, and Chris Douglas. In addition to touring with his band, Cleveland has performed with a legendary list of bluegrass greats. Nevertheless, he remains rooted in his local Southern Indiana community, where he continues to play with friends when he is not on tour.
Widely considered the bluegrass fiddler of his generation, Cleveland has been recognized 12 times as the IBMA’s “Fiddler of the Year” and in 2018 was inducted into the National Fiddler’s Hall of Fame. His recording Fiddler’s Dream was nominated in 2018 for a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, and in 2019, he won a Grammy for his album Tall Fiddler. In 2019, Cleveland’s amazing life of adversity and achievement was featured in the documentary film Flamekeeper: The Michael Cleveland Story.
By Jon Kay, Director, Traditional Arts Indiana“ My grandparents started taking me to [bluegrass music shows] when I was about six months old, that’s one of the first things I remember… just being there and listening to bluegrass. And then when I was about four years old, I was at one of those shows and a local fiddle player played the ‘Orange Blossom Special.’ And from that point on, I knew that I had to learn how to play.”
—Michael Cleveland
As a key figure in enriching the New Mexican cultural landscape, Eva Enciñias has devoted her life to building a home for flamenco in the United States and for introducing Spain (the birthplace of flamenco) and the larger world to the incredible flamenco created in New Mexico. As a dancer and instructor Enciñias’ tenacity has rippled throughout generations.
The Enciñias family is one of America’s “flamenco families.” Enciñias’ grandmother, Juanita Lopez, was a resadora, a woman who knew the repertoire of traditional alabados (sacred Spanish-language hymns). Enciñias’ mother, acclaimed flamenco dancer Clarita García de Aranda, ran a one-room studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from which she taught dance classes since the 1950s. Enciñias was born in Albuquerque into a family that had long embraced Nuevomexicano traditions of music and dance. Constantly surrounded by the guitar and songs of flamenco, Enciñias and her siblings were taught to dance and sing from a very young age by their mother.
Enciñias continued her family’s traditions as she began teaching flamenco dance lessons in her mother’s studio at the age of 14, demonstrating an aptitude and enthusiasm for sharing her passion and knowledge with others. By 1973, she would go on to establish her own dance company, Ritmo Flamenco (Flamenco Rhythm), touring regionally in the Southwestern United States for 15 years. In 1976, Enciñias began teaching a flamenco class at the University of New Mexico, unknowingly embarking on a 43-year career at the university.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Enciñias spearheaded the development of both undergraduate and graduate degrees with concentrations in flamenco, the only accredited dance program in the world to boast such specializations.
Enciñias founded the National Institute of Flamenco in 1982, creating varied flamenco programs, including Festival Flamenco Alburquerque, a world-class flamenco festival that has been awarded distinction from Spain as one of the premier flamenco festivals in the world; the Conservatory of Flamenco Arts, a flamenco dance school that has an internationally recognized music and dance curriculum; four performance companies; and two performance venues.
Throughout her career, Enciñias has touched thousands of lives through her generous sharing of flamenco. Her work has been recognized with many awards, including an induction into El Orden de Isabel la Católica, an honor bestowed upon her by the King of Spain, Felipe VI. Enciñias continues to work as the founding director of the National Institute of Flamenco where she directs the programming. She continues to teach flamenco dance classes, teaching the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of the children she taught in the 1970s and 1980s. Enciñias still puts on her flamenco shoes daily, honoring and preserving this cultural heritage for today and for the future.
By Dr. Annie D’Orazio, National Institute of Flamenco, and Sarah Williams Gonzales, Dance Historian, University of New Mexico
“ We don’t do flamenco simply because we want to do it, but because we are compelled to preserve this art form, share it, help it to evolve. It is our culture. It is in our blood. Every day is a fight and a struggle, and we are here to share this art form with as many people as possible.”
—Eva Enciñias
The Excelsior Band is a Black brass marching band that has, for generations, embodied the culture of the city of Mobile and its beloved Mardi Gras celebration. Originally organized as a firehouse band in 1883, Excelsior survived the crucible of Jim Crow, while assuming a central role in Mobile carnival and becoming a beloved institution across cultures in Mobile.
Excelsior leads the parades for both the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association and the Mobile Carnival Association as Mobile’s official band, bridging a racial divide between the historically Black and white Mardi Gras celebrations. They play carnival balls, parties, weddings, and jazz funerals, performing as many as 300 times a year. The current members are Theodore Arthur, Jr., saxophone; Luquen Cannon, Jr., trombone; Brad Cooper, trumpet; Aaron Covin, trumpet; Carl Cunningham, Jr., trombone; Ronnie Hunter, Jr., bass drum; Hosea London, Sr., trumpet; James Moore, saxophone; Danny Mosley, Jr., trumpet; Herbert O. Nelson III, alto saxophone; Leon Rhoden, drum; and Sean Thomas, tuba.
Since its founding on November 23, 1883, by Creole Fire Company president John Alexander Pope, only the finest veteran musicians have been invited to join Excelsior. Membership is the highest achievement among Mobile area musicians. “Nobody ever leaves,” according to Hosea London, the ensemble’s leader. “It’s not easy to get a spot in the band,” he said. “At the time I started over 30
Mobile, Alabama
years ago, I was probably the youngest person in the band. Guys have stayed as long as 50 years, until they have become just unable to perform with the band.” London, a retired elementary school music teacher, continued, “People in Mobile like history, so they really, really like the band and they support the band.” Excelsior plays Dixieland, jazz, blues, and pop with tunes such as “Margie,” “Hello Dolly,” “St. Louis Blues,” “South Rampart Street Parade,” and, of course, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The band’s sound is much the same today as it was decades ago.
The Excelsior Band was recognized with the Alabama Folk Heritage Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2013. The band was a 2012 Inductee to the Gulf Coast Ethnic & Heritage Jazz Festival Hall of Fame. Members of Excelsior have taught in the Alabama Folk Arts Apprenticeship program. The group has also been featured in posters, prints, postcards, paintings, and other signature works of art and memorabilia of Mobile’s Mardi Gras.
Excelsior’s longevity and artistry have made a longterm impact on Alabama’s music, education, and heritage. The band marched in its first Mardi Gras parade in 1884 and it marched at the head of the Alabama Bicentennial celebration in 2019. Excelsior marches still!
By Joey Brackner, Former Director, Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, Alabama State Council on the Arts “ ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’ — [tunes like] those have been around since forever. They are timeless. We’ve added some new things, like ‘Audubon Zoo’ and things like that, that came from the New Orleans style. But we never get away from what was working 100 years ago.”
—Hosea London, Excelsior Band
St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Ir remember people saying that you shouldn’t be singing that quelbe. It had a stigma on it,” says Crucian flutist, bandleader, and cultural advocate Stanley Jacobs. But in terms of local music of his childhood, “That’s all we knew.” For him, music was quelbe [pronounced kwel-BEH], and quelbe was music.
Born in 1941, Jacobs was raised on St. Croix, the largest of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands. Jacobs loved music from a young age, and since his family could not afford to buy instruments, he and his brothers made banjos out of sardine cans. Later in life, he earned a degree in psychology and began a career caring for the elderly in assisted living facilities. For many of the residents, quelbe had been the soundtrack of their lives, and, as such, a good part of Jacobs’ work was organizing social events with quelbe at the center. Coworker Stanford Simmonds, leader of Simmonds Brothers Band and an accomplished cane flute player, taught Jacobs some melodies and how to make a flute by drilling holes in tubes of metal and bamboo. Jacobs was hooked. “I must have made about a thousand flutes,” he recalls.
He explains the basics of quelbe: “It’s the particular instrumentation—pipe, steel (triangle), squash (gourd rasp), guitar, banjo (uke), flute . . . and also the singing, the type of lyrics and the phrasing of the music.” Over the past half century, the pipe was converted from a length of bamboo or automobile exhaust pipe played like a trumpet to electric bass, and the transverse cane flute was replaced by either the metal flute or the alto saxophone. A conga,
drumkit, electric guitar, and electric keyboard round out the modern quelbe band. The typical quelbe repertoire includes jigs, Crucian merengues, and quadrille dance melodies. Both old and new quelbe songs speak to Virgin Islands life and can be sharpwitted with humor and social critique.
After a stint playing flute with the group Joe Parris and the Hot Shots, Jacobs co-founded the Ten Sleepless Knights, which became sought out for more than a half century to play at parties, the annual Carnival parade, quadrille dances, and other cultural events. In recent decades, the band expanded its mission, becoming a nonprofit educational organization teaching the young people of St. Croix their music, dance, and cultural heritage. A scholarship fund was established for music students to preserve the quelbe tradition. Through his artistry and leadership, Jacobs became a bulwark in defense of his culture against the onslaught of pop music and the flood of arrivals from the U.S. mainland and other Caribbean islands. Today, in large part a result of his efforts, the disparaging stigma about quelbe is no more. In 2003, the Legislature of the Virgin Islands declared quelbe to be the “official” music of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in 2016, Jacobs and the Ten Sleepless Knights’ album Quelbe! was released by Smithsonian Folkways. Ten Sleepless Knights Folklife Festival was established in 2022 for the St. Croix community and celebrates the U.S. Virgin Islands’ culture, history, and traditions.
By Daniel Sheehy, 2015 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellow — Stanley Jacobs“ Quelbe is the first music I heard as a child and that is all that I heard. It was all that was here. I have loved music from the time I have known myself. I have always loved it, as a baby, as a child, all the time.”
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia, has long been celebrated as a “Gospel town” for its legacy of vibrant Black gospel groups and choirs. Among the city’s generations of countless groups, the Legendary Ingramettes have become widely considered the city’s “First Family of Gospel,” uplifting audiences for over six decades while becoming beloved cultural icons in the community. Music is one of many forms of ministry they have practiced, and the one they are most famous for. The storied group was originally formed by evangelist “Mama” Maggie Ingram, a single mother who steadfastly taught her five small children to accompany her as her “Ingramettes.”
Born Maggie Lee Dixon on July 4, 1930, on Mulholland’s Plantation in Coffee County, Georgia, she grew up working the cotton and tobacco fields with her parents. She developed a great love for the church and gospel music, teaching herself to sing and play the piano at the age of four. While still a teenager, she met and married a young field hand and itinerant preacher, Thomas Ingram, and together they had five children. Thomas eventually moved the family to Miami, where Maggie developed as a performer and joined the popular local group called the Six Trumpets.
Thomas left the family in 1961, leaving Maggie Ingram alone to raise the children. In a desperate effort to keep her family together, Ingram followed a calling to move the family to Richmond, Virginia, a harrowing journey in the pre-civil rights South. Upon their arrival, the family was taken in by the local Church of God In Christ. The local social service agency found Ingram employment as a housekeeper in the home of Oliver W. Hill Sr., the prominent civil rights
attorney who had represented the Virginia plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.
It was in Richmond that the Ingramettes took flight, soon sharing the stage with the likes of Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward, and many others. Ingram composed numerous local hits before signing with the storied gospel label Nashboro Records. All the while, the Ingramettes refused many offers to join secular groups, including most famously James Brown.
Ingram developed Alzheimer’s in her later years, and gracefully passed the leadership of the group into the capable hands of her oldest daughter, Almeta Ingram-Miller, before Ingram’s passing in 2015. A scintillating singer in her own right, Ingram-Miller is now backed by her niece Cheryl Maroney-Yancey, sister-in-law Carrie Jackson, Maggie’s goddaughter Valerie Stewart, and a rock-solid rhythm section. Together, the Ingramettes continue to bring the spirit of a Sunday morning service to the stage, enthralling audiences at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center, National Folk Festival, and countless others across the United States. Recently, the group toured Serbia and Bulgaria with the U.S. State Department and released Take a Look in the Book, their first recording since Ingram’s passing. In 2020, Almeta, Cheryl, and Carrie were presented with honorary doctorates (D.S.M.) from Higher Learning Bible Institute International Seminary, just as Ingram had received from Virginia Triumphant College and Seminary in 2011, a remarkable achievement for a woman with only a third-grade education.
By Jon Lohman, Center for Cultural Vibrancy“ Mama always taught us that it’s impossible to connect with audiences if you’re not sharing all of yourself. That’s really what gospel is more than anything. Yes, it’s about God and heaven, but it’s also about the struggle and showing and feeling gratitude in the face of that struggle. That’s what it was about for her, and still is for us 65 years later.”
—Almeta Ingram-Miller, The Legendary IngramettesPhoto by Pat Jarrett, Virginia Humanities
Francis P. Sinenci, affectionately known as Kumu Palani, was born and raised in the Hawaiian village of Hāna, Maui, known for its rich cultural heritage and stunning natural beauty. His childhood playgrounds were the mountains, valleys, and coasts of his island home, where he spent his days gathering food, fishing, learning from elders, or spending time with his ‘ohana (family).
After graduating from high school, Sinenci wanted to experience the world beyond his rural home. He spent nearly 30 years in the military, primarily in the U.S. Air Force, where he achieved the rank of Chief Master Sergeant. In 1967, he married his beloved wife Esmenia (“Esse”), a local girl from O‘ahu.
In the early 1990s, Hawai‘i pulled on Sinenci’s heartstrings, and he and Esse moved back. Little did he suspect this would launch his second career—revitalizing the art forms of kūkulu hale (traditional Hawaiian architecture) and uhau humu pōhaku (masonry). Traditional thatched structures, called hale (pronounced “ha-lay”), evolved over millennia of ancestral experience to be in harmony with Hawai‘i’s unique landscapes. There are many different types of hale, ranging from fully covered sleeping houses to open-walled, multi-purpose structures to A-frame canoe sheds.
During the era of cultural degradation that occurred after Western contact, modern buildings replaced traditional structures, and hale became a thing of the past, seen only in black-and-white photos of old Hawai‘i or in movies as “grass shacks.”
In 1994, Sinenci was asked to construct a hale at Helemano Elementary School. With no existing practitioners to learn from, he talked to anthropologist Rudy Mitchell, scoured archaeological records, including Dr. Russell Apple’s 1971 Hawaiian Thatched House, and studied the hale preserved in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. In true Hawaiian style, he learned by doing—pairing research with inherent ancestral knowledge to reclaim this dormant art form for present and future generations.
In the mid-90s, Sinenci formed a partnership with respected cultural advocate, Coila Eade, while building Kauhale O Hāna—a traditional Hawaiian village compound. This dynamic duo later created Hōlani Hāna, a five-acre cultural park that became an important training ground for practitioners as well as a focal point for Indigenous gatherings and community events. In the late 90s, Sinenci and a crew of local masons restored Pi‘ilani Hale, Hawai‘i’s largest stone structure and a place of deep cultural and spiritual importance.
Over the past 26 years, Kuhikuhi Pu’uone (Master Indigenous Architect) Sinenci has trained a new generation of practitioners, constructed countless hale and restored heiau in communities across Hawai‘i, spearheaded the creation of the Indigenous Architecture Building Code, piloted a hale builder certification program, and founded his traditional school Hālau Hale Kuhikuhi. He remains active in his craft training the next generation and running projects throughout Hawai‘i.
By Kauwila Hanchett, Executive Director, Hōlani Hāna“ Setting the stones is an art, selecting the wood is an art. Lashing, carving, it’s all an art.”
— Francis P. Sinenci
Richmond, California
Exile is a dynamic force when telling the story of Tibetan dance and opera artist Tsering Wangmo Satho. For many immigrants, life in diaspora can be a negotiation of new opportunities coupled with a longing for home. For Wangmo Satho, political danger and barriers to Tibet were the backdrop of her early years. When the Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959, many Tibetans followed their spiritual leader to India, where he found sanctuary. Wangmo Satho was born in a refugee settlement in southern India in 1967. Her elders served as living examples of tradition and language. She trained at the Tibetan Institute of the Arts (TIPA), founded by the Dalai Lama, that serves as a critical response to the threat to Tibetan culture, and to the Tibetan performing arts in particular, from Chinese occupation. Wangmo Satho has carried the vision of this work through her artistic direction and co-founding of Chaksam-pa (meaning “bridge builder”) Tibetan Dance and Opera Company, comprised of Tibetan master artists, all of whom have trained in exile. Since its founding in 1989, the ensemble is a powerful testament against cultural erasure through their sacred and secular repertoire.
Wangmo Satho toured from India through Europe in 1986 and 1989 and traveled to the United States for the first time in 1989 for a showcase of Tibetan arts at the Texas Folklife Festival. Soon after, she applied for U.S. residency and was granted with a visa based upon her “extraordinary artistic abilities.” She found California’s Bay Area a hospitable home with its diverse communities and artistic offerings.
Wangmo Satho initiated the Tibetan Cultural Preservation Project in 1995, organizing dozens of programs including a sand mandala ceremony by Tibetan Buddhist nuns, and in 2001, the Losar Tibetan New Year celebration featuring Tibetan elders from
India. In 2001, recognizing that her mother held more than 200 regional songs from the Kongpo region of Tibet solely in her memory, Wangmo Satho began to document and learn songs from her. Songs of Kongpo, published in 2020, is a free resource available to the exiled community. The collection is meticulously handwritten by Wangmo Satho in the Tibetan language and is now recorded for posterity.
Another milestone in 2011 was the production by Chaksam-pa of presenting The Religious King Norsang, a seven-hour performance at the Craneway Pavilion in Richmond, California. This marked the first time a Tibetan opera was performed in its entirety in North America with master artists from all over the United States, Canada, and abroad, who performed the 700-year-old tale with its contemporary message regarding water resources that are increasingly threatened. The event drew a multigenerational diasporic audience from California and the Pacific Northwest to enjoy this rare opportunity. A Hewlett 50 Arts Commission was given to Wangmo Satho and Chaksam-pa to create the first Shoton Festival over two days in July 2022.
Wangmo Satho continues teaching classes through the Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC) where she served as vice president. Since 1989, she has taught in a Tibetan language school program known as Namchod Kyetsel or “Garden of Intellects.” Designed for more than 200 students ages two to 18, the program includes the teaching of language through song, dance, and music. While the Bay Area Tibetan community is estimated to be 3,000 strong, Wangmo Satho’s impact as a Tibetan traditional artist is felt across the diaspora and illuminates the beauty and power of Tibetan arts and culture on an international scale.
By Lily Kharrazi, Director of Special Initiatives, Alliance for California Traditional Arts“ I say to the younger generation: Learn your own song and dance… . We don’t need a country if we have our culture alive… . Having a country and no culture is like a temple without god inside.”
—Tsering Wangmo Satho
Washington, DC
For more than 30 years, C. Brian Williams has performed, studied, and promoted the African American art form of stepping to audiences in more than 60 countries and 49 states. Stepping, a percussive, highly energetic dance form, was developed by Black fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s. A native of Houston, Texas, and a graduate of Howard University in Washington, DC, Williams first learned to step as a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. – Beta Chapter in 1989. He immediately recognized stepping as a vibrant and unique Black tradition needing further exploration.
Soon after graduating from college, Williams lived and worked in Southern Africa. It was there where he first saw the South African gumboot dance. The percussive dance form created by South African miners seemed strikingly similar to stepping. In December 1994, Williams founded Step Afrika! to explore these percussive connections.
The company’s first project, the Step Afrika! International Cultural Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, engaged artists and communities in the storied township of Soweto just six months after the historic election of President Nelson Mandela. In partnership with the Soweto Dance Theater, Williams led a two-week festival, focusing on crosscultural and artistic exchange while serving more than 400 young people with free workshops and performances. This festival provided the blueprint for Williams’ community-centered approach to the performing arts ever since.
Bringing Step Afrika! to the U.S. shores in 1996, Williams began developing feature-length performances and investing in new choreographic works that transferred the experience of a traditional college step show to a theater stage. One of the top 10 U.S. Black dance companies, Step Afrika! is primarily credited with introducing the art form of stepping to the American theater.
Under Williams’ leadership, Step Afrika! has expanded the scope and style of stepping from a traditional to a contemporary lens. Step Afrika! has fused stepping with jazz, classical music, Black spirituals, contemporary dance styles, and hip-hop that demonstrate the art form’s unlimited artistic possibilities. Williams has produced critically acclaimed productions like The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence and Drumfolk that celebrate the Black experience and led his company and the art form of stepping to performances at the White House, Broadway’s legendary Theater District, and the National Mall.
Paying homage to stepping’s roots on the college campus, Williams has developed the art form’s use as an educational and motivational tool for young people. He designed an innovative stepping curriculum, Stepping into Schools, that provides arts education experiences to students throughout the world. Williams’ work is featured in the world’s first interactive stepping exhibit, housed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which centers stepping’s unique and significant position in American cultural life.
By Connie L. Perez, Director of Institutional Relations, Step Afrika!
“ Stepping is an art form practiced and nurtured in almost every corner of the United States. My work has been to both preserve and promote the art form while creating outstanding opportunities for artists.”
—C. Brian Williams
New Orleans, Louisiana
Shaka Zulu is a master of Black Masking suit design, an art form specific to New Orleans, Louisiana, which originated as part of the Indigenous and African culture in the city. The intricate suit-building of the New Orleans Black Masking carnival tradition usually involves sewing and designing for one full year, and are colorfully displayed during Mardi Gras, St. Joseph’s Night, and Super Sunday in New Orleans. In addition to upholding the Black Masking tradition, Zulu is revered as a drummer and stilt dancer, both part of the city’s West African traditions.
Born in New Orleans in 1969, Zulu grew up immersed in African and Caribbean culture by being a part of his father Zohar Israel’s performing arts company, Free Spirit, in New Orleans. He started drumming at an early age and became a master of African and African diasporic percussion instruments, such as the djunjun, djembe, shakare, and congas. Under the masterful tutelage of his father, Zulu, at the age of 15, became a skillful and accomplished second generation stilt dancer. In 1995, Zulu and his wife Naimah formed the performing arts company, Zulu Connection, and toured their company of dancers, stilt dancers, and drummers nationally and internationally. Zulu has also toured internationally with NEA Jazz Master Donald Harrison Jr. as a masking performing artist and percussionist in Harrison’s band Congo Nation.
In 1999, he studied under Chief Darryl Montana, son of Chief Tootie Montana (1987 NEA National Heritage Fellow). His talent for impeccable sewing quickly led to his significant stature within the Black Masking tradition. He continues the “downtown” suit-making tradition pioneered
by Chief Tootie Montana, distinguished by its three-dimensional or soft-sculpture pieces with sequins, beads, turkey feathers, and a more abstract style. Zulu is now Big Chief of the Golden Feather Hunters established in 2018.
A thought-provoking lecturer on the origin and culture of the Black Masking traditions of New Orleans, Zulu has exhibited his suits both nationally and internationally at museums and festivals. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Zulu lectured and exhibited his suits at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. His 2015 suit was featured in Sounds of the City, an exhibit in Berlin, Germany, featuring the culture of New Orleans. His suit “Shango” is currently on exhibit in the Netherlands at the Africa Museum.
A consummate teacher and culture bearer, Zulu has conducted workshops on masking, drumming, and stilt dancing nationally and internationally. On trips to Tanzania in 2009 and 2019, he engaged with the Masai and Meru communities about the connection between the African and New Orleans African American traditions. It was in Tanzania in 2019 that Zulu beaded his 2019 Suit “The Toucan” with the diligent assistance of the youth in the villages of the Masai and the Meru people.
As part of New Orleans’ tricentennial in 2018, Zulu produced New Orleans Voices of Congo Square, a 30-cast-member stage production featuring the Black carnival traditions of New Orleans, touring the show nationally and internationally, and making a film of the production.
According to Shaka Zulu’s customs and traditions, he has passed down the Black Masking and stilt dancing traditions to his daughter, Sarauniya, who continues these practices.
“ …masking culture of New Orleans and the rhythm of the drum is where art, history, and tradition come full circle in the neighborhoods of New Orleans on Carnival Day. This unique platform allows us to tell our stories ourselves.”
—Shaka Zulu
Shiprock, New Mexico
Landscape colors, scattered hogans, and the sweet fragrance of burning juniper characterize the community of Toadlena, New Mexico. This land and its people nurtured TahNibaa Naataanii, master weaver, whose inspiration and creativity extend far beyond Toadlena. As a relentless culture bearer, her weaving has immeasurably impacted both traditional and contemporary textile arts.
Naataanii began her path to weaving when her paternal grandmother, Sarah Belone, watched her granddaughter explore prized, precious, reddishbrown wool. Naataanii’s innocent curiosity caused concern to some; a seven-year-old girl was handling wool and her grandmother’s carding tool. But, the matriarch’s wisdom prevailed: “Let her play with the wool, let her fingers glide through the wool. She is going to be a weaver and I am going to give my grandchild her Navajo name. She will be “TahNibaa Atlo hii gii.” (“Coming into Battle with Weaving.”)
From this life-altering experience, Naataanii began carding wool for her mother, and later created her first rug. By summer’s end, when the forage plants on the high desert had ripened seeds, she was selling weavings to purchase school clothing. After graduating, she joined the U.S. Navy. As Naataanii recalls, it was while on duty in the Philippines that the Diné deities, Spider Woman and Spider Man visited her with the reminder, “You are ‘TahNibaa Atlo hii gii.’”
In 1998, engaging the “weaver within,” Naataanii blossomed, unleashing her muse, the weaving way. She wove patterns that represented her individual creativity, beyond the regional patterns of European colonizers. By 2000, the strong weaving spirit synchronized with her own heartbeat and she located to her ancestral homeland, Table Mesa. There, she has flourished as a weaver and rancher of heritage Navajo Churro sheep, vowing to devote her life to this sacred
way. For Naataanii, weavings are living beings: Sheep are life and ceremonially essential.
With the arrival of trading posts over a century ago, weavings had become “commercialized,” although historically they were “utilitarian.” Many of Naataanii’s weavings are “functional,” such as men’s/ women’s shoulder blankets, early classic poncho, and TahNibaa shawl. Her return to functionality honors Diné heritage and authenticates the Navajo spirit of survival.
Naataanii’s weavings are recognized in ways too numerous to list. She will humbly point to her pride in particular textiles that represent themes significant to her people, including a pictorial weaving based on the ‘Navajo Code Talker’ theme and another depicting phases of the Navajo hogan, including a male and a female hogan, and ways modern hogans are constructed. The latter typifies her ability to honor tradition, while making meaning in the present moment.
In addition to her own vision and artistry, TahNibaa Naataanii has become recognized as a gifted and prolific mentor and teacher of holistic Diné weaving practice – from farming sheep to harvesting and dyeing wool, and through the complex techniques of developing and weaving textiles on a loom. She is also a celebrated interpreter of Diné weaving traditions, working with museums and cultural centers to tell the story and process of this remarkable art. Naataanii’s work has been exhibited by the US Department of State for display in Embassies across the globe. In 2020, she received two prestigious national awards: the Community Spirit Award from First Peoples Fund, and the Mentor Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation.
By Dr. Robert Hill, Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia, Institute of Native American Studies“ Living one’s true authentic self is the portal to living ‘hozho,’ which is our philosophy of living in balance. Weaving has been my super power teacher that has guided me to ‘hozho.’”
TahNibaa Naataanii
The Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship honors “keepers of tradition” who through their efforts as organizers, educators, producers, cultural advocates, or caretakers of skills and repertoires have had a major beneficial effect on the traditional arts of the United States. A member of the Lomax family of pioneering American folklorists, Bess Lomax Hawes (1921–2009) committed her life to the documentation and presentation of American folk artists. She served as an educator both inside the classroom and beyond, and
nurtured the field of public folklore through her service at the National Endowment for the Arts. During her tenure as director of the NEA Folk Arts Program (1977–1993) an infrastructure of state folklorists was put in place, statewide folk arts apprenticeship programs were initiated, and the National Heritage Fellowships were created. In 1993 she received the National Medal of Arts for her many contributions in assisting folk artists nationwide and in bringing folk artistry to the attention of the public.
Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD, Chair
Diane Dewhirst, Senior Deputy Chair
Ra Joy, Chief of Staff
Jennifer Chang, White House Liaison and Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff
Sonia Chala Tower, Director of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs
Ben Kessler, Director of Congressional Affairs
Ayanna Hudson, Acting Deputy Chair for Programs & Partnerships
National Heritage Fellowships Production Staff
Clifford Murphy, Folk & Traditional Arts Director
Cheryl T. Schiele, Folk & Traditional Arts Specialist
Clifton Archuleta, Audiovisual Production Specialist
Carlos Arrien, Web Specialist
Elizabeth Auclair, Assistant Director - Press
Don Ball, Assistant Director - Publications
Paulette Beete, Social Media Manager
Carolyn Coons, Staff Assistant
Jean Choi, Attorney Advisor
Daniel Fishman, Asst. General Counsel
Christine Gant, Advisor to the Director of Event Management & Development
Allison Hill, Public Affairs Specialist
David Low, Web Manager
William Mansfield, Folk & Traditional Arts Specialist
Rachel McKean, Asst. Grants Management Specialist
Josephine Reed, Media Producer
Kelli Rogowski, Visual Information Specialist
Erin Waylor, Division Coordinator
National Council for the Traditional Arts Staff
Lora Bottinelli, Executive Director
Julia Olin, Artistic Director, Director of Special Projects & Initiatives
Madeleine Remez, Senior Associate Director
Blaine Waide, Associate Director
Winston George, Finance Director
CJ Holroyd, Program Services Manager
Amy Mills, Festival Systems Director
Colleen Arnerich, Production Manager
Bridgette Hammond, Logistics Coordinator
Dudley Connell, Audio Archivist
Julia Gutiérrez-Rivera, Program Manager
April Goltz, Program Manager
Amy Millin, Development Specialist
Elaine Randolph, Administrative Specialist
Sean Tomlinson, Festival Assistant
Keenan Dubois, Production Assistant
Founded in 1933, the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) is the nation’s oldest folk arts organization. The NCTA presents the nation’s finest traditional artists to the public in festivals, national and international tours, concerts, radio and television programs, films, recordings and other programs. For over 30 years, the NCTA has worked with the National Endowment for the Arts on a consulting basis to manage and coordinate the National Heritage Fellowships activities honoring the Fellowship recipients.
Special thanks to American Routes Nick Spitzer
Maureen Loughran Lauren Callihan Tom Pich
Michael G. Stewart Program and promotional materials designed by Fletcher Design, Inc./Washington, DC
A Cross-Country Visit with Living Treasures of the Folk and Traditional Arts
Produced by Hypothetical in association with The National Council for the Traditional Arts for The National Endowment for the Arts
Director, Producer Olivia Merrion
Producer Debra A. Wilson
Assistant Editor, Associate Producer Sasha Leitmann Coordinating Producer Madeleine Remez Supervising Producer Cheryl T. Schiele Executive Producer Clifford Murphy
Film Host Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD
Editors Omri Shir, Colin Marshall, Elliot deBruyn, Nick Stone Schearer, Lorena Alvarado, Nathan Petty, Jennifer Lauren Sommer, Olivia Merrion
Colorist
Stephen Derlugian
Sound Mixer Hansdale Hsu
Additional production assistance provided by Clifton Archuleta, Elizabeth Auclair, Don Ball, Allison Hill, Josephine Reed
Director of Photography: Michael Inouye Gaffer: Michael Cruickshank Camera Operator: Rob Lau Drone Operator: Valen Ahlo Production Assistant: Jeremy Miller Music: 2011 NEA National Heritage Fellow Ledward Kaapana
Director of Photography: Nathaniel Brown Gaffer, Second Camera: Elliot deBruyn
Director of Photography: Nathaniel Brown Gaffer, Second Camera : Elliot deBruyn
Director of Photography: Christian Schultz Gaffer, Second Camera: JP Summers
Location Sound Mixer Heather Marshall Music: 2022 NEA Jazz Master Donald Harrison, Jr.
Director of Photography: Christian Schultz Gaffer, Second Camera: JP Summers Location Sound Mixer: Heather Marshall
Director of Photography: Leo Maco Second Camera: Marcos Rocha
Director of Photography: John Picklap Second Camera: Olivia Merrion Location Sound Mixer: Brandon Robertson
Director of Photography: Jake Zalutsky Gaffer: Zach Erwin Location Sound Mixer: James Friley
Director of Photography: Aaron Tucker Second Camera: Jon Akin Location Sound Mixer: Doug Bischoff Production Assistant: Robert Phanord
Director of Photography: Aaron Tucker Second Camera: Jon Akin Location Sound Mixer: Phil Edfors
Producer: Sasha Leitmann Director of Photography: Sam Price-Waldman Gaffer: Daniel Batalles Production Assistant: Nu Nguyen Teleprompter: Rachel Anft
Photo by Hypothetical
Dewey Balfa * Cajun Fiddler Basile, LA
Joe Heaney * Irish Singer Brooklyn, NY
Tommy Jarrell * Appalachian Fiddler Mt. Airy, NC
Bessie Jones * Georgia Sea Island Singer Brunswick, GA
George Lopez * Santos Woodcarver Cordova, NM
Brownie McGhee * Blues Guitarist/Singer Oakland, CA
Hugh McGraw * Shape Note Singer Bremen, GA
Lydia Mendoza * Mexican American Singer San Antonio, TX
Bill Monroe * Bluegrass Musician Nashville, TN
Elijah Pierce * Carver/Painter Columbus, OH
Adam Popovich * Tamburitza Musician Dolton, IL
Georgeann Robinson * Osage Ribbonworker Bartelsville, OK
Duff Severe * Saddle Maker Pendleton, OR
Philip Simmons * Ornamental Ironwork Charleston, SC
Sanders “Sonny” Terry * Blues Harmonica/Singer Holliswood, NY
Sister Mildred Barker * Shaker Singer Poland Spring, ME
Rafael Cepeda * Bomba Musician/Dancer Santurce, PR
Ray Hicks * Appalachian Storyteller Banner Elk, NC
Stanley Hicks * Appalachian Musician/ Storyteller/Instrument Maker Vilas, NC
John Lee Hooker * Blues Guitarist/Singer San Francisco, CA
Mike Manteo * Sicilian Marionettist Staten Island, NY
Narciso Martinez * Texas-Mexican Accordionist/ Composer San Benito, TX
Lanier Meaders * Potter Cleveland, GA
Almeda Riddle * Ballad Singer Greers Ferry, AR
Joe Shannon * Irish Piper Chicago, IL
Simon St. Pierre French American Fiddler Smyrna Mills, ME
Alex Stewart * Cooper/Woodworker Sneedville, TN
Ada Thomas * Chitimacha Basketmaker Charenton, LA
Lucinda Toomer * African American Quilter Columbus, GA
Lem Ward * Decoy Carver/Painter Crisfield, MD
Dewey Williams * Shape Note Singer Ozark, AL
Clifton Chenier * Creole Accordionist Lafayette, LA
Bertha Cook * Knotted Bedspread Maker Boone, NC
Joseph Cormier * Cape Breton Violinist Waltham, MA
Elizabeth Cotten *
African American Singer/Songster Syracuse, NY
Burlon Craig * Potter Vale, NC
Albert Fahlbusch * Hammered Dulcimer Player/Builder Scottsbluff, NE
Janie Hunter *
African American Singer/Storyteller Johns Island, SC
Mary Jane Manigault * African American Seagrass Basketmaker Mt. Pleasant, SC
Genevieve Mougin * Lebanese American Lace Maker Bettendorf, IA
Martin Mulvihill * Irish American Fiddler Bronx, NY
Howard “Sandman” Sims * African American Tap Dancer New York, NY
Ralph Stanley * Bluegrass Banjo Player/ Appalachian Singer Coeburn, VA
Margaret Tafoya * Santa Clara Pueblo Potter Espanola, NM
Dave Tarras * Klezmer Clarinetist Brooklyn, NY
Paul Tiulana * Eskimo Mask Maker/Dancer/Singer Anchorage, AK
Cleofas Vigil * Hispanic Storyteller/Singer San Cristobal, NM
Emily Kau’i Zuttermeister * Hula Master (Kumu Hula) Kaneohe, Hi
Eppie Archuleta * Hispanic Weaver San Luis Valley, CO
Periklis Halkias * Greek Clarinetist Astoria Queens, NY
Jimmy Jausoro * Basque Accordionist Boise, ID
Mealii Kalama * Hawaiian Quilter Honolulu, HI
Lily May Ledford * Appalachian Musician/Singer Lexington, KY
Leif Melgaard * Norwegian Woodcarver Minneapolis, MN
Bua Xou Mua * Hmong Musician Portland, OR
Julio Negrón-Rivera * Puerto Rican Instrument Maker Morovis, PR
Alice New Holy Blue Legs * Lakota Sioux Quill Artist Rapid City, SD
Glenn Ohrlin * Cowboy Singer/Storyteller/ Illustrator Mountain Veiw, AR
Henry Townsend * Blues Musicain/Songwriter St. Louis, MO
Horace “Spoons” Williams * Percussionist/ Poet Philadelphia, PA
Alphonse “Bois Sec” Ardoin * Creole Accordionist Eunice, LA
Earnest Bennett * Anglo-American Whittler Indianapolis, IN
Helen Cordero * Pueblo Potter Cochiti, NM
Sonia Domsch
Czech American Bobbin Lace Maker Atwood, KS
Canray Fontenot * Creole Fiddler Welsh, La
John Jackson * Black Songster/Guitarist Fairfax Station, VA
Peou Khatna * Cambodian Court Dancer/ Choreographer Silver Spring, MD
Valerio Longoria * Mexican American Accordionist San Antonio, TX
Doc Tate Nevaquaya * Comanche Indian Flutist Apache, OK
Luis Ortega * Hispanic American Rawhide Worker Paradise, CA
Ola Belle Reed * Appalachian Banjo Picker/Singer Rising Sun, MD
Jennie Thlunaut * Tlingit Chilkat Blanket Weaver Haines, AK
Nimrod Workman * Appalachian Ballad Singer Macot, & Chattaroy, TN/WV
Juan Alindato * Carnival Maskmaker Ponce, PR
Louis Bashell * Slovenian Accordionist Greenfield, WI
Genoveva Castellanoz Mexican American Corona Maker Nyssa, OR
Thomas Edison “Brownie” Ford * Anglo-Comanche Cowboy Singer/Storyteller Herbert, LA
Kansuma Fujima
Japanese American Dancer Los Angeles, CA
Claude Joseph Johnson * African American Religious Singer/Orator Atlanta, GA
Raymond Kane * Hawaiian Slack Key Guitarist/Singer Wai’ane, HI
Wade Mainer * Appalachian Banjo Picker/Singer Flint, MI
Sylvester McIntosh * Crucian Singer/Bandleader St. Croix, VI
Allison “Tootie” Montana * Mardi Gras Chief/Costume Maker New Orleans, LA
Alex Moore, Sr. * African American Blues Pianist Dallas, TX
Emilio & Senaida Romero * Hispanic American Tin and Embroidery Workers Santa Fe, NM
Newton Washburn * Split Ash Basketmaker Bethlehem, NH
Pedro Ayala * Mexican American Accordionist Donna, TX
Kepka Belton Czech American Egg Painter Ellsworth, KS
Amber Densmore * New England Quilter/Needleworker Chelsea, VT
Michael Flatley Irish American Stepdancer Palos Park, IL
Sister Rosalia Haberl * German American Bobbin Lace Maker Hankinson, ND
John Dee Holeman * African American Musician/Dancer/ Singer Durham, NC
Albert “Sunnyland Slim” Laundrew * Blues Pianist/Singer Chicago, IL
Yang Fang Nhu * Hmong Weaver/Embroiderer Detroit, MI
Kenny Sidle * Anglo-American Fiddler Newark, OH
Willi Mae Ford Smith * African American Gospel Singer St. Louis, MO
Clyde “Kindy” Sproat * Hawaiian Cowboy Singer/Ukulele Player Kapaaee, HI
Arthel “Doc” Watson * Appalachian Guitarist/Singer Deep Gap, NC
John Cephas * Piedmont Blues Guitarist/Singer Woodford, VA
Fairfield Four African American a Capelle Gospel Singers Nashville, TN
José Gutiérrez
Mexican Jarocho Musician/Singer Norwalk, CA
Richard Avedis Hagopian Armenian Oud Player Visalia, CA
Christy Hengel * German American Concertina Maker New Ulm, MN
Vanessa Paukeigope Jennings Kiowa Regalia Maker Fort Cobb, OK
Ilias Kementzides * Pontic Greek Lyra Player and Builder South Norwalk, CT
Ethel Kvalheim * Norwegian Rosemaler Stoughton, WI
Mabel E. Murphy * Anglo-American Quilter Fulton, MO
LaVaughn E. Robinson * African American Tap Dancer Philadelphia, PA
Earl Scruggs * Bluegrass Banjo Player Nashville, TN
Harry V. Shourds * Wildfowl Decoy Carver Seaville, NJ
Chesley Goseyun Wilson Apache Fiddle Maker Tucson, AZ
Howard Armstrong *
African American String Band Musican Boston, MA
Em Bun *
Cambodian Silk Weaver Harrisburg, PA
Natividad Cano * Mexican American Mariachi Musican Fillmore, CA
Giuseppe * and Raffaela DeFranco
Southern Italian Musicians and Dancers Belleville, NJ
Maude Kegg *
Ojibwe Storyteller/Craftsperson/ Tradition Bearer Onamia, MN
Kevin Locke Lakota Flute Player/Singer/ Dancer/Storyteller Wakpala, SD
Marie McDonald * Hawaiian Lei Maker Kamuela, HI
Wallace McRae Cowboy Poet Forsyth, MT
Art Moilanen * Finnish Accordionist Mass City, MI
Emilio Rosado * Woodcarver Utado, PR
Robert Spicer * Flatfoot and Buckdancer Dancer Dickson, TN
Douglas Wallin * Applachian Ballad Singer Marshall, NC
Etta Baker * African American Guitarist Morgantown, NC
George Blake
Native American Craftsman (Hupa-Yurok) Hoopa Valley, CA
Jack Coen * Irish American Flautist Bronx, NY
Rose Frank * Nez Perce Cornhusk Weaver Lapwai, ID
Eduardo “Lalo” Guerrero * Mexican American Singer/Guitarist/ Composer Cathedral City, CA
Khamvong Insixiengmai Southeast Asian Lao Singer Fresno, CA
Don King * Western Saddlemaker Sheridan, WY
Riley “B.B.” King * African American Blues Musician/ Singer/Bandleader Itta Bena, MS
Esther Littlefield * Alaskan Regalia Maker (Tlingit) Sitka, AK
Seisho “Harry” Nakasone * Okinawan American Musician Honolulu, HI
Irvan Perez * Isleno Singer (Canary Islands) Poydras, LA
Morgan Sexton * Appalachian Banjo Player/Singer Linefork, KY
Nikitas Tsimouris * Greek American Bagpipe Player Tarpon Springs, FL
Gussie Wells * African American Quilter Oakland, CA
Arbie Williams * African American Quilter Oakland, CA
Melvin Wine * Appalachian Fiddler Copen, WV
Francisco Aguabella * Afro-Cuban Drummer Los Angeles, CA
Jerry Brown * Potter (southern stoneware tradition) Hamilton, AL
Walker Calhoun * Cherokee Musican/Dancer/Teacher Cherokee, NC
Clyde Davenport * Appalachian Fiddler Jamestown, TN
Belle Deacon * Athabascan Basketmaker Greyling, AK
Nora Ezell * African American Quilter Five Points, TN
Gerald Hawpetoss * Menominee/Potowatomie Regalia Maker Neopit, WI
Fatima Kuinova * Bukharan Jewish Singer Rego Park, NY
John Yoshio Naka * Bonsai Sculptor Whittier, CA
Marc Savoy Cajun Accordion Player/Builder Eunice, LA
Ng Sheung-Chi * Chinese Toissan Muk’yu Folk Singer New York, NY
Othar Turner * African American Fife Player Senatobia, MS
Tanjore Viswanathan * South Indian Flute Maker Middletown, CT
Santiago Almeida * Texas-Mexican Conjunto Musician Sunnyside, WA
Kenny Baker * Bluegrass Fiddler Cottontown, TN
Inez Catalon * French Creole Singer Kaplan, LA
Elena & Nicholas Charles * Yupik Woodcaver/Maskmaker/ Skin Sewer Bethel, AK
Charles Hankins * Boatbuilder Lavallette, NJ
Nalani Kanaka’ole & Pualani Kanaka’ole Kanahele Hula Masters Hilo, HI
Everett Kapayou * Native American Singer (Meskwaki) Tama, IA
McIntosh County Shouters African American Spiritual/ Shout Ensemble St. Simons Island, GA
Elmer Miller * Bit and Spur Maker/Silversmith Nampa, ID
Jack Owens * Blues Singer/Guitarist Bentonia, MS
Mone & Vanxay Saenphimmachak Lao Weaver/Needleworker and Loom Maker St. Louis, MO
Liang-Xing Tang Chinese American Pipa (Lute) Player Bayside, NY
Liz Carroll Irish American Fiddler Mundelein, IL
Clarence Fountain * & The Blind Boys of Alabama African American Gospel Singers Atlanta, GA
Mary Mitchell Gabriel * Native American (Passamaquoddy) Basketmaker Princeton, ME
Johnny Gimble * Western Swing Fiddler Dripping Springs, TX
Frances Varos Graves *
Hispanic American “Colcha” Embroidery Rancho De Taos, NM
Violet Hilbert * Native American (Skagit) Storyteller/ Conservator Ca Conner, WA
Sosie Shizuye Matsumoto * Japanese Tea Ceremony Master Los Angeles, CA
D.l. Menard * Cajun Musician/Songwriter Erath, LA
Simon Shaheen Arab American Oud Player Brooklyn, NY
Lily Vorperian Armenian (Marash-Style) Embroidery Glendale, CA
Elder Roma Wilson *
African American Harmonica Player Oxford, MS
Bao Mo-Li
Chinese American Jing-Erhu Player Flushing, NY
Mary Holiday Black Navajo Basketmaker Mexican Hat, UT
Lyman Enloe * Old-Time Fiddler Lee’s Summit, MO
Donny Golden Irish American Step Dancer Brooklyn, NY
Wayne Henderson Appalachian Luthier, Musician Mouth of Wilson, VA
Bea Ellis Hensley * Appalachian Blacksmith Spruce Pine, NC
Nathan Jackson Tlingit Alaskan Woodcaver/ Metalsmith/Dancer Ketchikan, AK
Danongan Kalanduyan * Filipino American Kulintang Musician South San Francisco, CA
Robert Jr. Lockwood * African American Delta Blues Singer/ Guitarist Cleveland, OH
Israel “Cachao” López * Afro-Cuban Bassist, Composer, and Bandleader Miami, FL
Nellie Star Boy Menard * Lakota Sioux Quiltmaker Rosebud, SD
Buck Ramsey * Anglo-American Cowboy Poet, Singer Amarillo, TX
Obo Addy * African (Ghanaian) Master Drummer/ Leader Portland, OR
Betty Pisio Christenson * Ukranian American Pysanky Suring, WI
Paul Dahlin Swedish American Fiddler Minneapolis, MN
Juan Gutiérrez
Puerto Rican Drummer/Leader (Bomba and Plena) New York, NY
Solomon * & Richard * Ho’opii Hawaiian Falsetto Singers/Musicians Makawao, HI
Will Keys * Anglo-American Banjo Player Gray, TN
Joaquin Lujan * Chamorro Blacksmith GMF, GU
Eva McAdams Shoshone Crafts/Beadwork Fort Washakie, WY
John Mealing & Cornelius Wright, Jr. * African American Work Songs Birmingham, AL
Vernon Owens Anglo-American Potter Seagrove, NC
Dolly Spencer * Inupiat Dollmaker Homer, AK
Edward Babb * “Shout” Band Gospel Trombonist & Band Leader Jamaica, NY
Charles Brown * West Coast Blues Pianist & Composer Berkeley, CA
Gladys Leblanc Clark * Acadian (Cajun) Spinner & Weaver Duson, LA
Georgia Harris * Catawba Potter Atlanta, GA
Wen-Yi Hua * Chinese Kunqu Opera Singer Arcadia, CA
Ali Akbar Khan * North Indian Sarod Player & Raga Composer San Anselmo, CA
Ramón José López Santero & Metalsmith Santa Fe, NM
Jim* & Jesse McReynolds Bluegrass Musician Gallatin, TN
Phong Nguyen Vietnamese Musician/Scholar Kent, OH
Hystercine Rankin * African American Quilter Lorman, MS
Francis Whitaker * Blacksmith/Ornamental Iron Work Carbondale, CO
Apsara Ensemble
Cambodian Musicians & Dancers Fort Washington, MD
Eddie Blazonczyk * Polish Polka Musician/Bandleader Bridgeview, IL
Bruce Caesar
Sac Fox-Pawnee German Silversmith Anadarko, OK
Dale Calhoun * Boatbuilder (Reelfoot Lake Stumpjumper) Tiptonville, TN
Antonio De La Rosa * Tejano Conjunto Accordionist Riviera, TX
Epstein Brothers Klezmer Musicians Sarasota, FL
Sophia George Yakima Colville Beadwork and Regalia Gresham, OR
Nadjeschda Overgaard * Danish Hardanger Embroidery Kimballton, IA
Harilaos Papapostolou * Byzantine Chant, Greek Orthodox Potomac, MD
Roebuck “Pops” Staples * Gospel /Blues Musician Dalton, IL
Claude “The Fiddler” Williams * Jazz Swing Fiddler Kansas City, MO
Frisner Augustin * Haitian Drummer New York, NY
Lila Greengrass Blackdeer Hocak Black Ash Basketmaker, Needleworker Black River Falls, WI
Shirley Caesar Gospel Singer Durham, NC Alfredo Campos Horeshair Hitcher Federal Way, WA
Mary Louise Defender Wilson Dakota Hidatsa Traditionalist and Storyteller Shields, ND
Jimmy “Slyde” Godbolt * African American Tap Dancer Hanson, MA
Ulysses “Uly” Goode * Western Mono Basketmaker North Fork, CA
Bob Holt * Ozark Fiddler Ava, MO
Zakir Hussain North Indian Master Tabla Drummer San Anselmo, CA
Elliott “Ellie” Manette * Trinidadian Steel Pan Builder, Tuner, Performer Osage, WV Mick Moloney * Irish Musician New York, NY
Eudokia Sorochaniuk * Ukranian Weaver, Textile Artists, Embroidery Pennsuaken, NJ
Ralph Stanley * Master Boatbuilder, (Friendship Sloop) Southwest Harbor, ME
Bounxou Chanthraphone Lao Weaver, Embroiderer Brookland Park, MN
Dixie Hummingbirds * African American Gospel Quartet Philadelphia, PA
Felipe García Villamil Afro-Cuban Drummer/Santero Los Angeles, CA
José González * Puerto Rican Hammock Weaver San Sebastián, PR
Nettie Jackson Klickitat Basketmaker White Swan, WA
Santiago Jiménez, Jr Tex-Mex Accordionist/Singer San Antonio, TX
Genoa Keawe * Hawaiian Tto Singer/ Ukulele Player Honolulu, HI
Frankie Manning * Lindy Hop Dancer Choreographer/ Innovator Corona, NY
Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins * Blues Piano Player La Porte, IN
Konstantinos Pilarinos Orthodox Byzantine Icon Woodcarver Astoria, NY
Chris Strachwitz (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Record Producer/Label Founder El Cerrito, CA
B. Dorothy Thompson * Appalachian Weaver Davis, WV
Don Walser * Cowboy & Western Singer/Guitarist/ Composer Austin, TX
Celestino Avilés * Santero Orocovis, PR
Mozell Benson * African American Quilter Opelika, AL
Wilson “Boozoo” Chavis * Zydeco Accordionist Lake Charles, LA
Hazel Dickens * Appalachian Singer Washington, DC
Evalena Henry Apache Basketweaver Peridot, AZ
Peter Kyvelos * Oud Builder Bedford, MA
João “João Grande” Olivera Dos Santos Capoeira Angola Master New York, NY
Eddie Pennington
Thumbpicking Style Guitarist Princeton, KY
Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Performer Woodhaven, NY
Seiichi Tanaka Taiko Drummer Dojo Founder San Francisco, CA
Dorothy Trumpold * Rug Weaver High Amana, IA
Fred Tsoodle * Kiowa Sacred Song Leader Mountian View, OK
Joseph Wilson * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Folklorist/Advocate/Presenter Fries, VA
Ralph Blizard * Old-Time Fiddler Blountville, TN
Loren Bommelyn Tolowa Singer, Tradition Bearer, Basketmaker Crescent City, CA
Kevin Burke Irish Fiddler Portland, OR
Francis & Rose Cree * Ojibwa Basketmakers/Storytellers Dunseith, ND
Luderin Darbone/ Edwin Duhon * Cajun Fiddler and Accordionist Sulphur/Westlake, LA
Nadim Dlaikan Lebanese Nye (Reed Flute) Player Southgate, MI
David “Honeyboy” Edwards * Delta Blues Guitarist/Singer Chicago, IL
Flory Jagoda * Sephardic Musician/Composer Alexandria, VA
Losang Samten Tibetan Sand Mandala Painter Philadephia, PA
Bob McQuillen * Contra Dance Musician Composer Peterborough, NH
Clara Neptune Keezer * Passamaquoddy Basketmaker Perry, ME
Jean Ritchie * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Appalachian Singer/Songwriter Dulcimer Player Port Washington, NY
Domingo “Mingo” Saldivar Conjunto Accordionist San Antonio, TX
BASQUE “BERTSOLARI” POETS
Jesus Arriada San Francisco, CA
Johnny Curutchet South San Francisco, CA Martin Goicoechea Rock Springs, WY
Jesus Goni Reno, NV
Rosa Elene Egipciaco
Puerto Rican Bobbin Lace “Mundillo” New York, NY
Agnes Oshanee Kenmille * Salish Beadwork and Tanning Ronan, MT
Norman Kennedy Weaver/Ballad Singer Marshfield, VT
Roberto * & Lorenzo Martinez Hispanic Guitarist & Violinist Albuquerque, NM
Norma Miller * African American Jazz Dancer, Choreographer Cape Coral, FL
Carmencristina Moreno (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Mexican American Singer, Composer, Teacher Fresno, CA
Ron Poast Hardanger Fiddle Luthier and Player Black Earth, WI
Felipe I. & Joseph K. Ruak Carolinian Stick Dance Leaders Saipan, MP
Manoochehr Sadeghi Persian Santour Player Sherman Oaks, CA
Nicholas Toth Diving Helmet Builder Tarpon Springs, FL
Anjani Ambegaokar Kathak Dancer Diamond Bar, CA
Charles “Chuck” T. Campbell Gospel Steel Guitarist Rochester, NY
Joe Derrane * Irish American Button Accordionist Randolph, MA
Jerry Douglas Dobro Player Nashville, TN
Gerald Subiyay Miller * Skokomish Tradition Bearer Shelton, WA
Milan Opacich * Tamburitza Instrument Maker Schererville, IN
Eliseo & Paula Rodriguez * Straw Applique Artists Santa Fe, NM
Koko Taylor * Blues Musician Country Club Hills, IL
Yuqin Wang & Zhengli Xu Chinese Rod Puppeteers Tigard, OR
Chum Ngek (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Cambodian Musician and Teacher Gaithersburg, MD
Herminia Albarrán Romero Paper-Cutting Artist San Francisco, CA
Norwegian American Rosemaler Watertown, CT
Earl Barthé * Decorative Building Craftsman New Orleans, LA
Chuck Brown * African American Musical Innovator Brandywine, MD
Janette Carter * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Appalachian Musician, Advocate Hiltons, VA
Michael Doucet
Cajun Fiddler, Composer, and Band Leader Lafayette, LA
Tamburitza Musician, Prim Player North Huntingdon, PA
Grace Henderson Nez * Navajo Weaver Ganado, AZ
Wanda Jackson
Early Country, Rockabilly, and Gospel Singer Oklahoma City, OK
Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman * Yiddish Singer, Poet, Songwriter Bronx, NY
Albertina Walker * Gospel Singer Chicago, IL
James Ka’upena Wong Hawaiian Chanter Waianae, HI
Charles M. Carrillo
Santero (Carver and Painter of Sacred Figures) Santa Fe, NM
Delores E. Churchill
Haida (Native Alaskan) Weaver Ketchican, AK
Henry Gray * Blues Piano Player, Singer Baton Rouge, LA
Doyle Lawson Gospel and Bluegrass Singer, Arranger, and Bandleader Bristol, TN
Esther Martinez *
Native American Linguist and Storyteller San Juan Pueblo, NM
Diomedes Matos Cuatro (10-String Puerto Rican Guitar) Maker Deltona, FL
George Na’ope * Kumu Hula (Hula Master) Hilo, HI
Wilho Saari * Finnish Kantele (Lap-Harp) Player Naselle, WA
Mavis Staples Gospel, Rhythm and Blues Singer Chicago, IL
Nancy Sweezy * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Advocate, Scholar, Presenter, and Preservationist Lexington, MA
Treme Brass Band
New Orleans Brass Band New Orleans, LA
Nicholas Benson Stone Letter Carver and Calligrapher Newport, RI
Sidiki Conde Guinean Dancer and Musician New York, NY
Violet De Cristoforo * Haiku Poet And Historian Salinas, CA
Roland Freeman (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Photo Documentarian, Author, and Exhibit Curator Washington, DC
Pat Courtney Gold
Wasco Sally Bag Weaver Scappoose, Or
Eddie Kamae *
Hawaiian Musician, Composer, Filmmaker Honolulu, HI
Agustin Lira Chicano Singer, Musician, Composer Fresno, CA
Julia Parker Kashia Pomo Basketmaker Midpines, CA
Mary Jane Queen * Appalachian Musician Cullowhee, NC
Joe Thompson * African American String Band Musician Mebane, NC
Irvin L. Trujillo Rio Grande Weaver Chimayo, NM
Elaine Hoffman Watts * Klezmer Musician Havertown, PA
Horace P. Axtell * Nez Perce Elder, Spiritual Leader, and Drum Maker Lewiston, ID
Dale Harwood Saddlemaker Shelley, ID
Bettye Kimbrell * Quilter Mt. Olive, AL
Jeronimo E. Lozano * Retablo Maker Salt Lake City, UT
Walter Murray Chiesa * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Traditional Crafts Advocate Bayamón, PR
Oneida Hymn Singers Of Wisconsin Hymn Singing Oneida, WI
Sue Yeon Park Korean Dancer and Musician New York, NY
Moges Seyoum Ethiopian Church Musician Alexandria, VA
Jelon Vieira Capoeira Master New York, NY
Michael G. White Jazz Clarinetist, Band Leader, Scholar New Orleans, LA
Mac Wiseman * Bluegrass and Country Singer and Musician Nashville, TN
The Birmingham Sunlights A Cappella Gospel Group Birmingham, AL
Edwin Colón Zayas
Cuatro Player Orocovis, PR
Chitresh Das * Kathak Dancer and Choreographer San Francisco, CA
Leroy Graber * German Russian Willow Basketmaker Freeman, SD
“Queen” Ida Guillory Zydeco Musician Daly City, CA
Dudley Laufman Dance Caller and Musician Cantebury, NH
Amma D. McKen Yoruba Orisha Singer Brooklyn, NY
Joel Nelson Cowboy Poet Alpine, TX
Teri Rofkar * Tlingit Weaver and Basketmaker Sitka, AK
Mike Seeger * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Musician, Cultural Scholar, and Advocate Lexington, VA
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro
Cambodian Classical Dancer and Choregrapher Long Beach, CA
Yacub Addy * Ghanaian Drum Master Latham, NY
Jim “Texas Shorty” Chancellor Fiddler Rockwall, TX
Gladys Kukana Grace * Lauhala (Palm Leaf) Weaver Honolulu, HI
Mary Jackson Sweetgrass Basketweaver Johns Island, SC
Del McCoury Bluegrass Guitarist and Singer Hendersonville, TN
Judith McCulloh * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Folklorist and Editor Urbana, IL
Kamala Lakshmi Narayanan Bharatanatyam Indian Dancer Mastic, NY
Mike Rafferty * Irish Flute Player Hasbrouck Heights, NJ
Ezequiel Torres Afro-Cuban Drummer and Drum Builder Miami, FL
Laverne Brackens Quilter Fairfield, TX
Bo Dollis * Mardi Gras Indian Chief New Orleans, LA
Jim Griffith * (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Folklorist Tuscon, AZ
Roy and Pj Hirabayashi Taiko Drum Leaders San Jose, CA
Ledward Kaapana Slack Key Guitarist Kaneohe, HI
Frank Newsome Old Regular Baptist Singer Haysi, VA
Carlinhos Pandeiro De Ouro Frame Drum Player and Percussionist Los Angeles, CA
Warner Williams * Piedmont Blues Songster Gaithersburg, MD
Yuri Yunakov Bulgarian Saxophonist Bloomfield, NJ
Mike Auldridge * Dobro Player Silver Spring, MD
Paul & Darlene Bergren Dog Sled and Snowshoe Designers and Builders Minot, ND
Harold A. Burnham Master Shipwright Essex, MA
Albert B. Head (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Traditional Arts Advocate Montgomery, AL
Leonardo “Flaco” Jimenez Tejano Accordion Player San Antonio, TX
Lynne Yoshiko Nakasone Okinawan Dancer Honolulu, HI
Molly Jeannette Neptune Parker * Passamaquoddy Basket Maker Princeton, ME
The Paschall Brothers Tidewater Gospel Quartet Chesapeake, VA
Andy Statman
Klezmer Clarinetist, Mandolinist, and Composer Brooklyn, NY
Sheila Kay Adams
Ballad Singer, Musician, & Storyteller Marshall, NC
Storyteller, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Nixon, NV
Verónica Castillo
Ceramicist & Clay Sculptor San Antonio, TX
Séamus Connolly Irish Fiddler North Yarmouth, ME
Nicolae Feraru Cimbalom Player Chicago, IL
Carol Fran * Swamp Blues Singer & Pianist Lafayette, LA
Pauline Hillaire (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Tradition Bearer, Lummi Tribe Bellingham, WA
Sacred Harp Hymn Singer Huntsville, AL
Ramón “Chunky” Sánchez * Chicano Musician & Culture Bearer San Diego, CA
Henry Arquette * Mohawk Basketmaker Hogansburg, NY
Manuel “Cowboy” Donley * Tejano Musician and Singer Austin, TX
Kevin Doyle Irish Step Dancer Barrington, RI
THE HOLMES BROTHERS
Sherman Holmes Wendell Holmes * Popsy Dixon * Blues, Gospel, and Rhythm and Blues Band
Rosedale, MD Saluda, VA
Yvonne Walker Keshick Odawa Quillworker Petoskey, MI
Carolyn Mazloomi (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Quilting Community Advocate West Chester, OH
Vera Nakonechny Ukrainian Embroiderer, Weaver and Beadworker Philadelphia, PA
Singing and Praying Bands of MD and DE African American Religious Singers Maryland and Delaware
Rufus White
Omaha Traditional Singer and Drum Group Leader Walthill, NE
Rahim AlHaj Oud Player & Composer Albuquerque, NM
Michael Alpert Yiddish Musician and Tradition Bearer New York, NY
Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo, and Loretta Pettway Quilters of Gee’s Bend Boykin, AL
Dolly Jacobs Circus Aerialist Sarasota, FL
Yary Livan
Cambodian Ceramicist Lowell, MA
Daniel Sheehy (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Ethnomusicologist/Folklorist Falls Church, VA
Drink Small Blues Artist Columbia, SC
Gertrude Yukie Tsutsumi Japanese Classical Dancer Honolulu, HI
Sidonka Wadina Slovak Straw Artist/Egg Decorator Lyons, WI
Bryan Akipa Dakota Flute Maker and Player Sisseton, SD
Joseph Pierre “Big Chief Monk” Boudreaux Mardi Gras Indian Craftsman and Musician New Orleans, LA
Billy McComiskey
Irish Button Accordionist Baltimore, MD
Artemio Posadas (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Master Huastecan Son Musician and Advocate San Jose, CA
Clarissa Rizal * Tlingit Ceremonial Regalia Maker Juneau, AK
Theresa Secord Penobscot Nation Ash/Sweetgrass Basketmaker Waterville, ME
Bounxeung Synanonh Laotian Khaen (free-reed mouth organ) Player Fresno, CA
Michael Vlahovich Master Shipwright Tacoma, WA/St. Michaels, MD
Leona Waddell White Oak Basketmaker Cecilia, KY
Norik Astvatsaturov Armenian Repoussé Metal Artist Wahpeton, ND
Anna Brown Ehlers Chilkat Weaver Juneau, AK
Modesto Cepeda Bomba and Plena Musician San Juan, PR
Ella Jenkins
Children’s Folk Singer and Musician Chicago, IL
Dwight Lamb (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Danish Button Accordionist and Missouri-Style Fiddler Onawa, IA
Thomas Maupin Old-time Buckdancer Murfreesboro, TN
Cyril Pahinui * Hawaiian Slack-key Guitarist, Waipahu, HI
Phil Wiggins Acoustic Blues Harmonica Player Takoma Park, MD
Eva Ybarra Conjunto Accordionist and Band Leader San Antonio, TX
Palestinian Embroiderer Milwaukie, OR
Eddie Bond
Appalachian Old-Time Fiddler Fries, VA
Kelly Church
Anishinabe (Gun Lake Band) Black Ash Basketmaker Allegan, MI
Marion Coleman *
African American Quilter Castro Valley, CA
Manuel Cuevas Rodeo Tailor Nashville, TN
Ofelia Esparza Chicana Altarista (Day of the Dead Altar Maker) Los Angeles, CA
Barbara Lynn R&B Musician Beaumont, TX
Ethel Raim (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Traditional Music and Dance Advocate New York, NY
Don & Cindy Roy
Franco-American Musicians Gorham, ME
Dan Ansotegui
Basque Musician and Tradition Bearer Boise, ID
Grant Bulltail * Crow Storyteller Crow Agency, MT
Bob Fulcher (Bess Lomax Hawes Award)
Folklorist and State Park Manager Clinton, TN
Linda Goss
African American Storyteller Baltimore, MD
James F. Jackson
Leatherworker Sheridan, WY
Balla Kouyaté Balafon Player and Djeli Medford, MA
Josephine Lobato Spanish Colcha Embroiderer Westminster, CO
Decoy Carver Marion Station, MD
LAS TESOROS DE SAN ANTONIO Beatriz (La Paloma del Norte) Llamas and Blanquita (Blanca Rosa)
Rodríguez Tejano Singers San Antonio, TX
William Bell Soul Singer and Songwriter Atlanta, GA
Onnik Dinkjian Armenian Folk and Liturgical Singer Fort Lee, NJ
Zakarya * and Naomi Diouf West African Diasporic Dancers Oakland/Castro Valley, CA
Karen Ann Hoffman (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin)
Haudenosaunee Raised Beadworker Stevens Point, WI
Los Matachines de la Santa Cruz de la Ladrillera Traditional Religious Dancers Laredo, TX
Hugo N. Morales (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Radio Producer and Network Builder Fresno, CA
John Morris Old-Time Fiddler and Banjo Player Ivydale, WV
Suni Paz Nueva Canción Singer and Songwriter Henderson, NV
Wayne Valliere (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) Birchbark Canoe Builder Waaswaaganing (Lac du Flambeau, WI)
Cedric Burnside Hill Country Blues Musician Ashland, MS
Tom Davenport (Bess Lomax Hawes Award) Filmmaker, Documentarian, and Media Curator Delaplane, VA
Tagumpay Mendoza De Leon Rondalla Musician Burbank, CA
Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee) Osage Ribbon Worker Tulsa, OK
Los Lobos Mexican American Band Los Angeles, CA
Joanie Madden Irish Flute Player Yonkers, NY
Reginald “Reggio the Hoofer” McLaughlin Tap Dancer Chicago, IL
Nellie Vera Mundillo Master Weaver Moca, Puerto Rico
Winnsboro Easter Rock Ensemble Easter Rock Spiritual Ensemble Winnsboro, LA
The Legendary Ingramettes perform at the 2016 Richmond Folk Festival.
Photo by Pat Jarrett, Virginia Humanities
Michael Cleveland Bluegrass Fiddler Charlestown, Indiana
Photo by Amy Richmond
Eva Enciñias Flamenco Artist Albuquerque, New Mexico
Photo Courtesy of NIF
Excelsior Band Brass Band Musicians Mobile, Alabama
Photo Courtesy of Artists
Stanley Jacobs Quelbe Flute Player and Bandleader St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Photo Courtesy of Artist
The Legendary Ingramettes Gospel Artists Richmond, Virginia
Photo by Pat Jarrett, Virginia Humanities
TahNibaa Naataanii (Navajo/Diné) Navajo/Diné Textile Artist and Weaver Shiprock, New Mexico
Photo Courtesy of Artist
Francis P. Sinenci Master Hawaiian Hale Builder Hāna, Hawai‘i
Photo by Hōlani Hāna
Tsering Wangmo Satho Tibetan Opera Singer & Dancer Richmond, California
Photo by Ames Catling
C. Brian Williams Step Artist and Producer Washington, DC
Photo by Jim Saah
Shaka Zulu
New Orleans Black Masking Craftsman, Stilt Dancer, and Musician New Orleans, Louisiana
Photo Courtesy of Artist
