Brooklyn Arts Council is proud to help nurture Brooklyn’s traditional artists and preserve our borough’s diverse heritage through our folk arts program.
Brooklyn Arts Council works with Brooklyn’s traditional artists and their immigrant communities to preserve and present arts expressive of the borough’s diverse living heritage—folk song, storytelling, social dance, foodways, material culture and more. BAC’s folk arts program is directed by a professional folklorist and associates trained in fieldwork techniques—interviewing, photographing, community engagement skills and collaborations. Fieldwork is part of every project that eventually becomes a series of events and programs, but it’s also a part of learning about traditional communities and arts in Brooklyn. The following samples provide an introduction to the way that folklorists do fieldwork.
We regularly present traditional artists in concerts, workshops and panels; help them identify and apply for grants; consult with members of local communities to help preserve traditional ecologies; and educate the public about traditional lifeways.
Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC)’s Folk Arts program announces a series of summer programs celebrating traditional art forms from cultures found along the B/Q train lines in Brooklyn. In collaboration with Russian, Ukrainian, Crimean, Chinese, Mongolian, Georgian, Haitian, Armenian, Belarusian, Tajik, Uzbek, Azerbaijaini, and Pakistani cultural communities, public programs will take place on subway platforms and in community spaces throughout the borough in June and July, culminating in the second annual Brooklyn Roots Festival in Prospect Park.
Brooklyn’s evolving folklife is documented and preserved in BAC’s folk arts archive, online and by appointment at BAC. Traditional, ethnic, and diaspora arts express and preserve cultural custom, history, memory and identity.
Brooklyn’s evolving folklife is documented and preserved in BAC’s folk arts archive, online and by appointment at BAC. Traditional, ethnic, and diaspora arts express and preserve cultural custom, history, memory and identity.
BAC Folk Arts Programs are made possible, in part, through public funds from: National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council; and the Brooklyn Borough President's Office. Major foundation and corporate support is provided by Lily Auchincloss Foundation and TD Bank.
