Members of Ballet Folklorico Mexicapan perform a dance from the Northern state of Tamaulipas at Estrella Mountain Park, May 16, 1999. Photo: Felix Borundra. Part of the documentation in Arizona's Local Legacies projects.

Arizona

The American Folklife Center was created in 1976 by the U.S. Congress through Public Law 94-201 and charged to "preserve and present American folklife." The Center incorporates the Archive of Folk Culture, which was established at the Library of Congress in 1928, and is now one of the largest collections of ethnographic material from the United States and around the world.

Collections

Arizona's wealth of folk culture is well represented in the American Folklife Center. Among the Center's recordings are cylinders of Hopi music dating from the early 1890s, collected by Jesse Walter Fewkes, and now part of the Center's collections. Also included are recordings of the Blessingway, Enemyway, and other rites of the Navajo, as well as traditional songs of the Hopi, Quechuan, Tohono O'odham, and Yaqui people. The Center's Arizona collections also include unique recordings of miners' songs, fiddle tunes, cowboy music and stories, and Mormon music and narrative.

• Arizona Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture [draft available upon request]

Arizona participated in the Library's Bicentennial Local Legacies project, which includes documentation of local traditions and celebrations for the American Folklife Center's Archive of Folk Culture.

• View Arizona's Local Legacies projects

Concert Webcast

• November 16, 2005: Dineh Tah Navajo Dancers. Dances and songs of the Navajo Nation [webcast and flyer] [catalog record]

Public Programs

• 1982 "Generation to Generation: Sharing the Intangible" (exhibit), Salt River Project, Silva House, Phoenix.
• 2003 The Arizona Heritage Project in cooperation with Arizona arts organizations, Sharlot Hall Museum Prescott, Arizona. The Arizona Heritage Project connects schools to communities by helping students research, interpret, and share their region’s rich cultural heritage. See related article: "Arizona Heritage Project Investigates Community Folklife, History, and Culture," in Folklife Center News, Fall 2004 (pg. 8-10). [PDF: 1.9 MB / 16 p.]

Publications

• "Accommodation and Renewal: Catholic Architecture of Tohono O'odham Nation," Folklife Annual 90 [catalog record]
• The Federal Cylinder Project: A Guide to Field Recordings in Federal Agencies, Volume 5: California, Middle and South American and Southwestern Catalog [catalog record]
• Arizona Folklife Survey [catalog record]