Art Works Podcast

For more than 40 years, folklorist, state park manager, and 2019 National Heritage Fellow Bobby Fulcher has been seeking out and recording traditional artists, creating programming around these artists to shine a light on their work, and serving as an inspiration and mentor to multiple generations of young folklorists. That Fucher has accomplished all this while working for Tennessee State Parks r...

In this 2021 podcast, we get a lesson in Hill Country Blues from Grammy Award Winner Cedric Burnside . Cedric has the blues in his bones: his father, uncles, and cousins all played. His grandfather was blues legend R.L. Burnside, known to Cedric as “Big Daddy.” Cedric essentially grew up in R.L.’s house, listening to the music, playing along at the regular house parties and at the local juke joint...

Leonard Bernstein only composed a handful of shows on Broadway, but he was a game-changer. From  On the Town  to  West Side Story , Bernstein mixed genres and styles of music—incorporating jazz, blues, ragtime, Latin beats-- mixing them with popular song traditions and the rhythms of the streets and then filtering it all through his own distinctive voice.  In this 2018 podcast, we explore it all w...

In this podcast, Matthew Gardiner talks about directing Stephen Sondheim’s "Into the Woods," the emotional draw of musical theater, and Stephen Sondheim’s mastery of it. We discuss Signature's commitment to musical theater and its development through its many programs, the theater's long association with Stephen Sondheim, what goes into staging an iconic musical like "Into the Woods," the theater'...

In this 2019 interview, author and educator Renée Watson talks about her prize-winning YA title,  Piecing Me Together  and  Watch Us Rise (co-written with poet Ellen Hagan ). Both look at the lived experiences of black girls as they grapple with identity right at the intersection of race, class and gender. But Watson is a story-teller not a sociologist and, as in life, her characters can and do re...

In this podcast, Navajo/Diné Textile Artist and Weaver and  2022 National Heritage Fellow  TahNibaa Naataanii talks about Navajo/Diné weaving, which is more than an art--it's a way of life. Naatanii raises sheep, shears them, dyes, cards, spins, and, finally, weaves their wool. She tells us the creation story of Diné weaving, and its deep spiritual connections to her everyday practices.  We talk a...

We’re marking Thanksgiving week by posting an interview I did earlier this year for the issue of American Artscape that focused exclusively on Native-Americans artists .  I spoke with author and NEA Literature Fellow Kelli Jo Ford (Cherokee) whose award-winning novel Crooked Hallelujah --a semi-autobiographical novel of linked short stories--takes us through the complicated lives of four generatio...

We are celebrating Native American Heritage Month and the NEA National Heritage Award by revisiting Theresa Secord —a 2106 awardee and Penobscot basketmaker.   Although Secord’s great-grandmother was renowned for her baskets woven from the bark black ash tree and sweet grass, Theresa herself didn’t learn to weave until she was an adult.  In the podcast she discusses returning to the reservation af...

C. Brian Williams talks about the art of stepping—defining and historicizing the art form and discussing its deep connection to African-American fraternities and sororities. (He learned to step when he was accepted into a fraternity at Howard University ). He talks about the creation of Step Afrika! which began in 1994 as a dance festival in South Africa and grew into an education and performing a...

Kevin Locke passed away on September 30, 2022. He was a Lakota flute player, hoop dancer, teacher, and 1990 National Heritage Fellow. And we’re paying tribute to him by reposting this 2015. In the podcast, Kevin Locke talks about learning to play the indigenous flute—which had been on the brink of extinction, his work in the revitalization of the Lakota language, and the difference in meaning danc...

Early last year the NEA’s magazine * American Artscape *published an article by Paulette Beete entitled, “ Let Black Voices Ring Again ” about the Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society’s participation in the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) to rehabilitate a vacant but historically-significant Black church. In this podcast, we’re following up to trace the continuing impact of CI...

Bluegrass Fiddler and 2022 NEA National Heritage Fellow Michael Cleveland talks about his life immersed in music   Virtuoso fiddler and 2022 National Heritage Fellow Michael Cleveland talks about his life in bluegrass—and it is a lifelong love affair. He was brought to bluegrass shows as an infant and began performing on stage when he was about seven years. Known for the speed, intensity, and arti...

With her second novel “The Taste of Sugar,”   Marisel Vera has created an epic tale with an intimate heart.  It tells the story of small coffee farmers in late 19th century Puerto Rico whose lives had been shaped by Spanish colonialism and upended by the 1898 US Invasion and the devastating 1899 hurricane San Ciriaco which left thousands dead and a quarter of a million people without food and shel...

A discussion with performance poet, performer, and playwright [Amalia Ortiz](Amaliaortiz.net) who directs the theater arts program at [SAY Sí.](Saysi.org) SAY Sí  is a year-round, long-term, tuition-free multidisciplinary arts program in San Antonio serving middle and high school students primarily at or below the poverty line. In this podcast, Ortiz talks about the work of SAY Sí in general and t...

Afro-Dominican filmmaker Loira Limbal’s documentary Through the Night is an intimate look at one home-based 24-hour day-care center in New Rochelle, the couple who runs the center and the mothers and children who need it.  The film, which was co-produced and presented by the PBS program POV , examines the impossible situations workers who are single parents--primarily women and most particularly w...

Flamenco Artist and 2022 National Heritage Fellow Eva Enciñias has transformed and broadened the performance and study of flamenco in the United States generally and in her hometown of Albuquerque, N.M. particularly. In this podcast, Enciñias talks about the artistry and history of flamenco and her family’s roots in this art form;  her dual loves: flamenco and teaching,  her 43 year-long career as...

Composer and Dean and Director of the Music Division at The Juilliard School, David Serkin Ludwig talks about the opportunities and challenges at The Juilliard School , with its 850 plus students in music, drama, and dance. He discusses issues of equity and diversity at the school and in “classical” music as well as his longstanding commitment to a more inclusive music community and the importance...

The new monthly series “Art at the Intersection” will explore the ways the arts are helping to shape and inspire work being done in many areas of society, for example, in healthcare, city planning, infrastructure design, public spaces. The list is long, varied and sometimes unexpected . The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture)   is a case in point. Co-founded by artist, resear...

Author and 2020 NEA Literature Fellow Vanessa Hua is getting a lot of well-deserved praise for her recently released novel, Forbidden City which tells the story of the Chinese Cultural revolution as experienced by a woman who is a member of Chairman Mao’s dance troupe. In fact, Vanessa ‘s NEA Literature Fellowship enabled her to finish the book, so it seemed like a good time to revisit my 2020 int...

The 2015 vote of the  New Orleans City Council to remove four Confederate monuments from public grounds was met with death threats, protests, lawsuits, and rallies.  Writer and comedian CJ Hunt, curious “why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America” covered the hearings and protests. The result of Hunt’s exploration is a documentary called * The Neutral Ground-- *a personal, di...

Jenny Mendez, director of the Mattie Rhodes Art & Cultural Center in Kansas City, Missouri, discusses the center’s work in arts education and community programming. The Mattie Rhodes Center has been a force on the west side of Kansas City for over 125 years.  Believing that the arts are a basic and integral part of every person’s education and growth, Mattie Rhodes opened its art center 50 plu...

Almeta Ingram-Miller is the leader of the powerhouse gospel group and 2022 National Heritage Fellows the Legendary Ingramettes . The Legendary Ingramettes are a case in point. In this musical podcast, Ingram-Miller, a born storyteller, talks about the group’s six-decade-long journey and the vison and legacy of her mother Maggie Ingram, who began the group when she was left with five children to ra...

Jacob Ming-Trent has been moving from strength to theatrical strength. He played Falstaff to rave reviews in the Public Theater’s 2021 production of “Merry Wives” the play that re-opened theater in New York City after the pandemic shutdown and was set in the African immigrant community of Washington Heights.  Right now, Ming-Trent is starring as Bottom in the Folger Theater’s production of “ A Mid...

In today’s podcast, Sarah Smarsh discusses her book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth which is a 2018 National Book Award finalist and a 2022-2023 NEA Big Read title. Smarsh discusses her family background in rural Kansas, intergenerational poverty, and the difficulty of recognizing the impact of class in America. We also talk about her decision to...

We’re celebrating the announcement of the 2023 NEA Jazz Masters by revisiting my interview with 2021 NEA Jazz Master and 2016 Pulitzer-Prize winner Henry Threadgill . Threadgill  remains one of music’s great innovators—as a composer and as a musician. In this podcast, Threadgill reflects on the vast musical legacy he found in his hometown of Chicago and the early influence of Muhal Richard Abram s...