2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows

Subject: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 14 May 09 - 06:47 PM

This year's fellows

The musicians are

Dudley Laufman (New England dance caller and musician)
"Queen" Ida Guillory (Zydeco musician)
Birmingham Sunlights (a cappella gospel group)
Edwin Colón Zayas (cuatro player)
Amma D. McKen (Yoruba Orisha singer)

"The 2009 Bess Lomax Hawes Award is awarded to Mike Seeger, a musician, cultural scholar, and advocate from Lexington, Virginia. The Bess Lomax Hawes Award recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the preservation and awareness of cultural heritage."

Mike is also a past Fellowship winner.

The press release says, "The 2009 awardees will come to Washington, D.C. in September for a series of events including a banquet at the Library of Congress and an awards presentation on Capitol Hill as well as a concert scheduled for Thursday, September 24, 2009 at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland."

Congratulations to them all!! (And that's a show I wish I could make it to!)

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:34 PM

Thanks for posting this Becky.

Mike Seeger is the only one of the awardees with whom I am familiar. Now I get to go google to see if there are youtube videos of the rest!

Janie

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 11:12 PM

No free video examples could I find, but here is Laufman's website.

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 11:17 PM

Queen Ida

One Youtube video. Others available.

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 11:20 PM

Birmingham Highlights

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 11:24 PM

Edwin Colón Zayas

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Janie
Date: 14 May 09 - 11:29 PM

Amma D. McKen

This one may take a minute to load. It is a wma file and I am on a Mac so I think it is quicktime instead of media player.

Being very partial traditional African music, this is my favorite of the bunch.

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 May 09 - 02:48 AM

I was introduced to contra dancing in Vermont in the '70s at the Farm & Wilderness Camps (a group of Quaker camps). Jack Sloanaker, who was then director of Camp Timberlake, organized the F&W String Band, an open band of staff and campers, that played for our dances and sometimes went out and played for others.

Jack was also a member of the Canterbury Country Orchestra, also a pretty much open band led by Dudley Laufman, that played for dances around New England. Not surprisingly, the sounds of those two groups was quite similar. Although Dudley claims Canterbury was the first dance band to record an LP, they were recorded on the F&W label, which Jack started in order to put out two LPs of the F&W band. (There was one album put out with a mass meeting of both groups...)

Dudley's an interesting guy. Although the old-timers found him iconoclastic in what he did with passing contra dancing on to the young folks in the '60s and '70s, he's now quite the carmudgeonly traditionalist about the scene.

David Millstone made a wonderful documentary about Dudley, entitled, "The Other Way Back; Dancing with Dudley".

Dudley is also a wonderful poet.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 15 May 09 - 07:15 AM

I learned to contra dance from Dudley Laufman in New Hampshire in the mid-1970's. He is indeed a curmudgeonly dude, but one with a compelling personality! He has figured out how to stick to his traditional guns, sort of to remind the rest of us where we came from! But he is largely responsible for the spread of the contra dance craze around the country in the '60s and 70s.

My husband and I both knew Dudley before we knew each other, and of course he and Jacqueline played at our wedding last Sept.!

Congratulations to one who truly deserves the honor.

Subject: RE: 2009 NEA National Heritage Fellows
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 May 09 - 01:59 PM

I am quite sympathetic to carmudgeonly traditionalists myself. ;-)

~ Becky in Tucson