The Festival of American Folklife, held annually since 1967 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was renamed the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 1998.
The 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival was produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and cosponsored by the National Park Service.
For more information, see
This collection documents the planning, production, and execution of the 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Materials may include photographs, audio recordings, motion picture film and video recordings, notes, production drawings, contracts, memoranda, correspondence, informational materials, publications, and ephemera. Such materials were created during the Festival on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as well as in the featured communities, before or after the Festival itself.
Arranged in 5 series.
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival forms part of the
Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution.
Within the Rinzler Archives, related materials may be found in various collections such as the Ralph Rinzler papers and recordings, the Lily Spandorf drawings, the Diana Davies photographs, the Robert Yellin photographs, and the Curatorial Research, Programs, and Projects collection. Additional relevant materials may also be found in the Smithsonian Institution Archives concerning the Division of Performing Arts (1966-1983), Folklife Program (1977-1980), Office of Folklife Programs (1980-1991), Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies (1991-1999), Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (1999-present), and collaborating Smithsonian units, as well as in the administrative papers of key figures such as the Secretary and respective deputies. Users are encouraged to consult relevant finding aids and to contact Archives staff for further information.
Access to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections is by appointment only. Visit our
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections. Please visit our
The Rinzler Archives is continually engaged in digitization of archival materials to facilitate preservation and ready access by users. However, given the diversity of legacy formats of the originals, some older materials may not be available. Notably, certain older audio recordings cannot be played because of deterioration of the tape stock, and the Archives has no playback equipment for EIAJ-1 videoreels (1/2 inch) or multi-track audio recordings. Where listening or viewing copies are available, this is generally indicated for each item. Users are encouraged to contact Archives staff to verify that the materials of interest to them are already accessible, or to determine if they can be digitized as needed.
The 2011 Festival featured three programs featuring cultures from the United States and many countries around the world. In collaboration with Colombia's Ministry of Culture and several non-governmental organizations, a bi-national research and curatorial team explored the confluence of nature and culture in six major regional ecosystems and the three largest cities - Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín. More than one hundred participants from these regions brought this research to life on the National Mall. They represented the diverse faces of Colombian culture - some of which might have been unfamiliar even to Colombians themselves.
For the Rhythm and Blues program, the Festival joined with the National Museum of African American History and Culture to recount the development of this uniquely American music. The performances and stories of veteran artists revealed how this music has been shaped by the reordering of race relations after World War II, the civil rights movement, and the interplay between the commercial industry and the artists. The participation of emerging artists demonstrated how the music continues to transform and stay vital.
The third program, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, featured returned Peace Corps volunteers and host country nationals from fifteen of the 139 countries in which the Peace Corps has served. By demonstrating the role of culture in furthering social development, the program highlighted one of the Peace Corps' primary goals, "Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans."
In the 2011 Festival, more than three hundred people who are prime bearers of their unique cultural traditions offered Festival visitors abundant opportunities to experience - person-to-person - craftsmanship, occupational skills, musical styles, dance, and culinary traditions that they might not otherwise encounter. In learning of their accomplishments, audience members could expand their own sense of "the art of the possible"; learn about themselves; and foster an optimism based in curiosity and empathy.
The 2011 Festival took place for two five-day weeks (June 30-July 4 and July 7-11) between Madison Drive and Jefferson Drive and between 9th Street and 14th Street, south of the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History (see site plan). It featured three programs and special events including the Rinzler Concert.
The 2011 Program Book included participant lists for each program; keynote essays provided background on each of the programs; a separate brochure provided a site plan and daily schedules.
The Festival was co-presented by the Smithsonian Institution and National Park Service and organized by the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Daniel Sheehy, Director;
J. Scott Raecker, Chair; Libby O'Connell, Vice Chair; Mounir Bouchenaki; Jennifer Cover Payne; Mickey Hart; John Herzog; Bill Ivey; Enrique R. Lamadrid; Ellen McCulloch-Lovell; Ann Elizabeth Sheffer; Cathy Sulzberger; Deborah Wong; Patricia Shehan-Campbell (ex officio); Daniel Sheehy (ex officio); Richard Kurin (ex officio); G. Wayne Clough (ex officio)
Jonathan B. Jarvis, Director; Woody Smeck, Acting Regional Director; Karen Cucurullo, Acting Superintendent, National Mall and Memorial Parks
The Festival was supported by federally appropriated funds; Smithsonian trust funds; contributions from governments, businesses, foundations, and individuals; in-kind assistance; and food, recording, and craft sales. Smithsonian Channel was a Supporter of the Festival. General in-kind support was provided by WAMU-88.5 FM and WPFW, Pacifica Radio, 89.3 FM.
The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acknowledges and respects the right of artists, performers, Folklife Festival participants, community-based scholars, and knowledge-keepers to collaboratively steward representations of themselves and their intangible cultural heritage in media produced, curated, and distributed by the Center. Making this collection accessible to the public is an ongoing process grounded in the Center's commitment to connecting living people and cultures to the materials this collection represents. To view the Center's full shared stewardship policy, which defines our protocols for addressing collections-related inquiries and concerns, please visit
2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival Program Book
2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival site plan
Sojin Kim and Sita Reddy were Editors of the 2011 Program Book. Krystyn MacGregor was Art Director; Josué Castilleja and Zaki Ghul were Senior Graphic Designers; Lisette Baylor was Graphic Designer.
Colombia is located in a strategically important corner of South America between the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. From south to north, the Andean chain ascends from Chile and opens into an impressive triple range of high mountains interspersed by two valleys. From coast to coast, extensive lowlands stretch towards the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, into the broad eastern plains, and the Amazonian rainforest. Over time, its inhabitants have adapted to these natural highland and lowland environments, transforming them in a variety of ways in order to ensure their survival. As they grapple with the challenges posed by the rugged geography; the effects of an earlier economic development strategy based on mineral extraction, export, and depletion of natural resources; and the violence from warring factions that represent clashing national and international interests, Colombians have shown profound resilience and creativity in forging a rich cultural heritage of skills and knowledge, memories and traditions, religious faith and dreams that provide the ground for a better world for their children.
The resulting symbiosis of culture and nature - the rich and diverse cultural ecosystems - provided the organizing principle of the 2011 Festival program on Colombia. The program featured a sampling of these traditions in the six ecosystems and three urban contexts that form part of the broad panorama of the country's cultural nature. In each cultural ecosystem, local populations have developed distinctive ways of managing natural resources through cultural practices that include stories and legends, song and dance, food preparation, healing practices, craft-making skills, fishing techniques, and building traditions. As contingents from each of these ecosystems showed Festival visitors, transformations in Colombia's cultural traditions are in permanent dialogue with the natural environment. The nature of culture, in other words, derives from Colombia's unique culture of nature.
The cities of Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali sit at the crossroads between diverse regions and ecosystems, where the rural and urban, the national and international, converge. Beginning in the twentieth century, the social, economic, and cultural vibrancy of these cities has attracted a steady stream of migrants from rural areas seeking lifestyle and employment options not available in their farming communities. The growing interdependence between tradition and modernity evident in Colombia's cities has set in motion changes in the customs, habits, and occupations associated with daily life, giving rise to new cultural patterns. These cities have become cosmopolitan centers where one can observe the intersection of cultural, religious, and artistic trends from around the world, and at the Festival these sites of convergence and intersection were also highlighted.
The 2011 Festival celebrated the country's rich bio-cultural diversity. One hundred Colombian artists traveled to the National Mall in Washington to sing, dance, tell stories, prepare food, and demonstrate religious ceremonies and occupational practices. Basket weavers, jewelry makers, cowboys, mule packers, jeep drivers, among others, demonstrated the wisdom, creativity, and commitment that grows out of a profound understanding of the land one inhabits.
Olivia Cadaval and Margarita Reyes Suárez were Curators, and Cristina Díaz-Carrera was Program Coordinator. An Advisory Committee included: Inés Cavelier, Ramiro Delgado Salazar, Janeth Reyes Suárez, Carlos Rodríguez, and Enrique Sánchez. Within Colombia, Mónika Therrien was Research Coordinator and Director of Erigaie, and Sandra Marcela Durán, Juanita García Caro, Germán Ferro Medina constituted the Curatorial Team. Ana María Arango, Carlos Beltrán, Nágila Garrido, Enrique Maldonado, Daniel Matapí, and Darío Robayo were Regional Coordinators
The program was produced in partnership with the Ministry of Culture of Colombia with the support of the Embassy of Colombia in Washington, D.C., and the Fondo de Promoción Turística de Colombia. Major Donor support came from the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation and the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Additional Donors to the program included Caterpillar Inc. and Occidental Petroleum Corporation. Citi, ExxonMobil, NTN24, Proexport, and UNESCO were Contributors to the program. The Bogotá Mayor's Office and the US-Colombia Business Partnership were Supporters of the program.
Natalia Angarita, Ana María Arango, Lina Cortés, Ramiro Delgado Salazar (Anthropology, Universidad de Antioquia), Ingrid Díaz, Sandra Marcela Durán, Germán Ferro Medina, Catalina García Chaves, Mónica Hernández, Fernando López Vega, Janeth Reyes Suárez, Carlos A. Rodríguez (Tropenbos International), María Angélica Rodríguez Ibáñez, Antonio Tobón
Olga Elena Acosta Ossa, Martín Andrade Pérez, Catalina Cavelier Adarve, Xóchitl C. Chávez, Rámiro Delgado Salazar, Eduardo Díaz, María Firmino-Castillo, Ingrid Frederick Obregón, Catalina García Chaves, León García, Catalina Gómez Arbeláez, Paulina Guerrero, Kiley Guyton Acosta, Enrique Lamadrid, Fernando López Vega, Ángela María Medellín Muñoz, René Montero Serrano, Jimena Perry Posada, Lucía Pulido Reyes, Janeth Reyes Suárez, María Angélica Rodríguez Ibáñez, Daniela Rodríguez Uribe, Juan Sebastián Rojas Enciso, Camilo Ruiz Sánchez, Silvia Salgado, Carolina Santamaría Delgado, Silvia M. Serrano, Emily Socolov, Nafice Yassine Yohaid
More than 200,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in 139 countries since 1961, when the agency was established by Executive Order 10924. Signed by President Kennedy on March 1, 1961, the two-page Executive Order simply established "an agency in the Department of State which shall be known as the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps shall be headed by a Director." That person, appointed by Kennedy three days later, was Sargent Shriver, his brother-in-law. The U.S. Congress made it official on September 22, 1961, by authorizing the Peace Corps Act and appropriating $30 million for the new agency's first annual budget. The very first paragraph of the Act declares that the Peace Corps should "promote world peace and friendship" through three interrelated goals:
Half a century later, the annual federal appropriation had reached a high of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2010, but the three goals of the Peace Corps, its Congressional mandate, and its commitment to building world peace and friendship have never changed.
The 2011 Festival was pleased to host - and recognize - the Peace Corps volunteers who have served the organization since its founding fifty years ago. The Festival program built upon previous Folklife Festival programs that have examined occupational and organizational traditions. At the Festival, these occupational and organizational groups have each demonstrated their own sets of skills, specialized knowledge, and codes of behavior that not only distinguish them from other occupational groups but also meet their needs as a community. The fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps in 2011 provided a wonderful opportunity for understanding and appreciating its organizational and occupational cultures.
The Peace Corps program at the 2011 Festival brought together Peace Corps volunteers - both past and present - with roughly one hundred of the people with whom they have served from more than a dozen countries around the world in order to promote a greater understanding of world cultures. Together, volunteers and collaborating communities demonstrated to Festival visitors the experience and accomplishments of Peace Corps volunteers around the world. But they also looked forward: as the Peace Corps moves into its next fifty years, the inequities that existed half a century ago - poverty, disease, illiteracy, and hunger - still loom large in much of our world, often exacerbated by such contemporary challenges as climate change and HIV and AIDS. And as Festival visitors were reminded, the need for world peace and friendship is certainly as important today as it was fifty years ago.
James Deutsch was Curator; Jason Bowers was Program Coordinator; and Kim Stryker was Family Activities Coordinator. The Peace Corps Curatorial Advisory Committee included: Randy Adams, Shilpa Alimchandani, Marjorie Anctil, Anne Baker, Daniel Baker, Lenny Bankester, Lynette Bouchie, Karen Chaput, Kristen Fernekes, Angela Glenn, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, Lynn Kneedler, Nicole Lewis, Bob Michon, Jody Olsen, Kirsten Radewagen, Amber Smigiel, Frank Smith, Shelley Swendiman, and Lori Wallace. Kristen Fernekes was Program Manager for the Peace Corps and Chris Lisi was Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Director.
The program was produced in partnership with the Peace Corps. Major Donor support came from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. UPS Foundation was a Contributor to the program.
Betty Belanus, Harold Closter, Nancy Groce, Diana N'Diaye, Marjorie Hunt, Cynthia Vidaurri
The 2011 Rhythm and Blues program was an exploration of the rich historical, cultural, and musical matrix of R&B. Through music and dance performances, workshops, and narrative discussions, the program considered R&B as a collaborative art form shaped by composers, performers, producers, and communities of listeners. Most importantly, it highlighted how music provides a dynamic lens to explore the relationship of African American history and experiences to American popular culture.
The history of R&B and the breadth of what it encompasses - socially, commercially, and artistically - suggests that it is not monolithic. It tells a complex story of many strands and experiences. A distinctly African American music drawing from the deep tributaries of African American expressive culture, it is an amalgam of jump blues, big band swing, gospel, boogie, and blues that was initially developed during a thirty-year period that bridges the era of legally sanctioned racial segregation, international conflicts, and the struggle for civil rights. Its formal qualities, stylistic range, marketing and consumption trends, and worldwide currency thus reflect not only the changing social and political landscapes of American race relations, but also urban life, culture, and popular entertainment in mainstream America.
This music that speaks about a history of marginalization and exclusion also tells a story about resilience and resistance. The 2011 Festival program underlined these latter qualities. It celebrated pioneers and iconoclasts, soloists and studio musicians, and relationships and collaborations through which a younger generation was taking ownership of the music. This was perhaps most dynamically revealed in the participation of the Stax Music Academy, a group of Memphis high school musicians who are learning leadership and teamwork skills through music that (in their own words) "embodies the spirit of harmony, respect and cooperation that defined Memphis' legendary Stax Records." These students not only learn the historic importance of the music, but also experience R&B through collaboration and practice as a living art form - an art form that Festival visitors in Washington could also experience vividly and directly on the National Mall.
Mark Puryear was Curator and Arlene Reiniger was Program Coordinator. Portia Maultsby, Bob Santelli, and Michael White constituted the Curatorial Advisory Committee. For the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Project Staff included: Lonnie G. Bunch, Director; Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Deputy Director; Timothy Anne Burnside, Research Assistant; Dorey Butter, Project Manager; Deirdre Cross, Public Programs Coordinator; Delphia York Duckens, Associate Director for External Affairs; Rex Ellis, Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs; Cheryl Johnson, Government Relations Officer; LaFleur Paysour, Media Relations and Public Affairs; Dwandalyn Reece, Curator of Music and Performing Arts; and Kevin Strait, Project Historian.
The program was produced in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Lawrence Bradford, Timothy Anne Burnside, Rex Ellis, Tuliza Fleming, John Franklin, Charles Hughes, Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, Kip Lornell, Barry Lee Pearson, Jeff Place, Dwandalyn Reece, Tulani Salahu-Din, Randy Short, Kevin Strait
Each year the Festival holds a special evening concert to honor both its co-founder Ralph Rinzler (1934–1994) and a key person with whom he collaborated. The 2011 Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert paid tribute to his wife, Kate. For many years during Ralph's tenure as director of the Festival, Kate was his confidante and worked closely by his side.
A dancer, choreographer, and artist, Kate used art to teach children about social issues. And children's folklore - their art and their games - became a major theme in her life. In 1974, she created a section of the Festival dedicated to children's folklore. Kate invited storytellers, musicians, and other tradition bearers such as Bessie Jones from the Georgia Sea Islands, Alison McMorland from Scotland, Paul Ofori-Ansah with his African games, and Stu Jamieson with Appalachian traditions to work with children on the National Mall. A series of films was produced on children's games and distributed through the Smithsonian Office of Museum Programs. While Kate directed the children's section of the Festival from 1974 to 1979, she solidified the concept of children's activities as a core theme for the Festival. In the years since then, children's programming has always been part of the Festival, and we have Kate to thank for that.
After Ralph's passing, Kate coordinated the annual Ralph Rinzler Memorial Concert for a number of years until she sold their long-time Washington home and moved west to Prescott, Arizona. During her final years she worked as an artist, mainly in the medium of batik, and found a wonderful new community of friends. She lost a long battle with cancer on Christmas Day 2010. In her memory, the 2011 Rinzler Concert featured artists who shared her commitment to children: Elizabeth Mitchell and Suni Paz. Mitchell, who has recorded two albums for Smithsonian Folkways, made her Festival debut, while renowned Argentinean songwriter-singer Suni Paz, who recorded several albums for Smithsonian Folkways, returned to the Festival after many years.