PHILADELPHIA P • R • O • J • E • C • T I N P R O G R E S S Volume 10:2-3 Summer/Fall 1997 ISSN 1075-0029 Roshni Bhakta Special 10th shows mehandi Anniversary work done by Issue Rashmi Jhaveri, Photo courtesy R. Jhaveri V V V V ANNIVERSARY Where INSI DE were From the editor, p. 2 you in Ten years at the PFP, p. 3 Painted ladies: mehandi, p. 10 January Chia Kue’s carved fruits, p.14 1987? Ione Nash, dancer, p. 16 African dance party fieldwork, p. 18 The Still family reunion and the Underground Railroad, p. 20 A labor organizer in Honduras, p. 24 Information about PFP publications, events, and exhibitions, p. 28 10 V V V V FROM THE EDITOR If you are just meeting us, or if you’ve gotten to know PFP from one of our projects, we hope you will enjoy the abbreviated “growth chart” we include in this special birthday issue. While we can’t V V V V possibly condense 10 years into a few pages, we thought people might enjoy getting glimpses of places we’ve been, people we’ve worked with and things we’ve done. Other articles in this issue Over time, we’ve devel- reflect the work of the past six months. They provide a window on some of what we’ve accom- oped three kinds of plished in this, our 10th year. We’re growing up and out. Our new traveling exhibitions program responses to local placed photos of local folk arts and culture in 26 sites across the region—from the Kensington needs: public Joint Action Council to the Down Jersey Folklife Center, from the Walt Whitman Cultural Arts programs to make Center to the Black Family Reunion Cultural Center. This past year, we also produced our first documentary videotape, “Plenty of Good Women Dancers: African American Women Hoofers local folk artists from Philadelphia”— and showed it at 14 community screenings to wonderful and moving better known and response. We offered nine workshops and gatherings, teaching folk arts, bringing people togeth- understood, services to er, and helping artists and community organizations to sustain and fund the folk arts in their own artists and grassroots communities. Over the course of this past year, more than 12,700 people came to a PFP program, saw an exhibit, learned to tap dance, or joined with others who believe that the quality of life of folk cultural agencies our neighborhoods is improved by a vital folk culture. Our publications, including our brand new to help support local children’s book, “In My Heart I am a Dancer,” reached at least another 5,300 people. And thanks culture in our commu- to the continuing generosity of the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, we grew as a staff, complet- nities (a key compo- ed a strategic plan, improved our ways of working, asked a lot of questions, learned. It has been a wonderful year. We like being 10! nent to quality of life!) The artists in this issue were all involved in this year’s programs. We introduce you to Chia Kue and resources—books, and Rashmi Jhaveri, gifted women who were featured guests at the folk artists’ marketplace at videos, magazines and this past year’s Folk Art Auction. Both Chia Kue and Ione Nash are artists who have participated an archive with more successfully in our technical assistance programs. Fieldwork for forthcoming programs also kept than 45,000 items—to us busy all year, and PFP staff members write about their research and what will come of it in these pages. Stacey Ford describes work that will result in a fabulous social dance party this fall. preserve a record of (Please plan to come!) Teresa Jaynes shares excerpts from a gripping interview done for our Folk the folklife of our city, Arts of Social Change project and for the same project, former PFP staff folklorist Bill Westerman past and present. Some profiles the Still family’s long connection to the Underground Railroad, and ways in which that highlights of those dif- history connects to present traditions and values. Fieldwork with activists is inspiring. In the worst ferent programs are of times, people have managed to hold on to a vision of equity and justice, and to develop pow- erful strategies for working towards that vision. We are 10, but we are only 10, and we are well included here. aware that we are just beginning to learn our job, beginning to ask harder and better questions of all of our teachers: the artists and activists and locally rooted thinkers and chroniclers and histori- ans. We are privileged to start a second decade in such company, and we hope that you are among them. If you are not yet a member, I invite you to join. In these hard times, we need your support more than ever. Our ability to do good work depends on turning occasional magazine readers into participants and supporters. Come to a PFP event this year. Meet the people described in these pages. Help us start our next decade by investing in the arts in our own city neighborhoods. —Debora Kodish HAPPY 2 10 BIRTHDAY! 10 YEARS: Birthday Growth Chart Despite the often-touted years, and those whom life of family businesses, and on folk cultural organizations and on show. Our annual grants workshop Italian folk arts. diversity of the city’s we’ve yet to meet— we doing oral history, and our technical led to technical assistance for assistance resulted in support for apprenticeships and projects involv- Where neighborhoods, we saw offer this growth chart. apprenticeships and projects involv- ing Chamroeun Yin, a Khmer classical incredible neglect of 1989/90 ing Hal Taylor, who carved European- dancer wno had just moved to town, were folk arts (which we also This was the year we were gearing style marionettes, and Blanche Epps, Mom Sak, a Khmer beadworker, and saw as powerful, often 1987/88 up for: the 100th anniversary of the a traditional gardener, and for a Lati- the Cambodian Association of Greater The 100th anniversary of the challenging, alternative American Folklore Society. A thou- no festival organized by Iris Pagan at Philadelphia. American Folklore Society, a sand folklorists from all around the Thomas Eakins House. you in points of views rooted in national organization, was world came to the city in October, approaching, and we wanted to people’s experiences.) and joined the Philadelphians who 1991/92 know more about the place of folk- We saw some work that lore in our city. We opened an turned out for Philadelphia Folk- 1990/91 Intensive fieldwork went into a pho- January lore Month. For a citywide celebra- On the eve of Lithuanian Indepen- tographic exhibition using both needed to be done, and office at the Fleisher Art we created an organiza- Memorial, began field research tion of folklife, we organized 121 dance, our new community con- family pictures and images by into Philadelphia folk cultures, cert series presented the Lithuanian Khmer and American photogra- 1987? tion—with your help— published the first issue of Works Folk Song Quartet in a moving phers. “Bamboo Shoots Grow to do it. As a birthday in Progress, and established our (SRO) concert that was their first Up to Be Bamboo: Cambodian card to all of you—those archive on Philadelphia folklife. As performance outside the Lithuanian Folk Arts in Philadelphia” whom we’ve gotten to we met people and groups who community. Our second concert opened at the Fleisher Art Memorial We were moving into a were trying to preserve and sup- V V V V know over the last ten event featured tap dancers LaVaughn and traveled to United Communities small back room at the port local folk arts and culture, we Robinson and Germaine Ingram in of Southeast Philadelphia. Also at were able to offer them technical an intimate performance and dis- Fleisher, Cambodian master musi- Photos this page, Samuel S. Fleisher Art assistance in carrying out their Memorial. Shortly after plans. Our own research was cussion. We curated two exhibi- cian Koung Peang and his phleng kar l-r: Cambodian that, we could be found focused on understanding how tions as part of the “Art in City Hall” ensemble performed “kat sao,” a wedding, 1990. the city’s many organizations program. “Passing on Traditions: Photo: Thomas B. V V V V in many corners of the supported folk arts, on the folk- Sixteen Master Folk Artists,” co- Morton. Koung city, talking to folk curated with the Folklife Center of Peang playing a Photos this page, artists and to other peo- International House, examined the tror, c. 1990. clockwise from top ple and groups working history of state support of Photo: Thomas B. left: Alpha Kappa to keep culture alive and events offered by 70 organizations. master/apprentice partnerships. Morton. Terrence Alphas stepping at The PFP and Fleisher created a major “Preserving Traditions,” a PFP Cameron and the Greek Picnic, vital in our neighbor- exhibition on the arts of our own exhibition, introduced a wide range one of his steel 1988. Photo: hoods. We met hundreds neighborhood— “Uses of Tradi- of local folk arts, past and present. drums. Jerrilyn of amazing and little- tion: Arts of Italian Americans in Brief catalogs accompanied each Photo: Thomas McGregory. known artists whose Philadelphia.” We supplemented B. Morton Blanche Epps works were significant the exhibition with palm-weaving teaches gardening, workshops, a book, and walking 1990. Photo: Jan and whose voices and tours featuring dressed windows Greenberg. Pegg points of view we came and Italian craftsmen’s work.