Arts Across NC

Today, February 18, 2020, marks the one-year anniversary of the official induction of Jaki Shelton Green as North Carolina’s first African American poet laureate. In this episode of Arts Across NC, host Sandra Davidson interviews Jaki Shelton Green about her time as our state’s ninth poet laureate. During the show Jaki discusses the impact and public reception of her historic appointment and refle...

Full of Riches takes listeners into the world of Seagrove, N.C. where TAPS students are taught the region’s celebrated pottery tradition by master artist and N.C. Heritage Award recipient Sid Luck. The North Carolina Arts Council created TAPS, a statewide network of after school programs, in response to community requests for traditional arts education taught locally, knee-to-knee, and across gene...

Children and parents learn together at the Haliwa-Saponi Traditional Arts Program for Students (TAPS). Gathering families and intergenerational groups for tribal culture and tradition classes is important in a rural place like Hollister, N.C. where the program is based. We learn why in this new episode of Arts Across NC. The North Carolina Arts Council created TAPS, a statewide network of after sc...

Call and Response chronicles the origin story of TAPS, the Traditional Arts Program for Students. The North Carolina Arts Council created TAPS, a statewide network of after school programs, in response to community requests for traditional arts education taught locally, knee-to-knee, and across generations. TAPS is an intergenerational story. It's a story about community and pride in place. It’s a...

Lauchlin Shaw was a Harnett County-based fiddler whose family was a part of the 18th and 19th century wave of Scottish immigration to North Carolina. “His great-grandfather had come from the Isle of Jura off Scotland’s coast up through the Cape Fear River Valley,” says Wayne Martin. “That’s a really important story for North Carolina that we don’t hear about so much now.” Shaw’s grandfather and fa...

Etta Baker is one of North Carolina’s most famous Piedmont blues guitarist. Born in Caldwell County, she started learning guitar from her father when she was three. Her masterful, emotive pickin’ first appeared in 1956 on the album Instrumental Music from the Southern Appalachians, but it took 35 years before her next recording and first solo record One Dime Blues appeared. That album arose from m...

One hundred years ago famed folk-song collectors Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles visited North Carolina and documented hundreds of ballads and folk songs that had their roots in the British Isles. The epicenter of our state's ballad singing tradition is Madison County, NC. In the second installment of Director's Cut, a special mini-season of Arts Across NC, Wayne Martin shares a "Jack-A-Roe," a ball...

In celebration of Come Hear North Carolina, a campaign for the 2019 North Carolina Year of Music, we're back with a new music themed season of Arts Across NC called "Director's Cut." Over the next four episodes, NC Arts Council Director Wayne Martin will unearth a field recording from the archive he built during his 30+ year tenure with our agency. Each song represents a different region of North...

Arvil Freeman likes to say, "I can teach you to play, but how good you’ll be depends on you." He’s talking about fiddling. Arvil Freeman is one of western North Carolina’s most respected fiddlers and fiddle instructors, and he’ll receive the North Carolina Heritage Award on May 23 for his life-long devotion to the region’s traditional music. His long career is full of moments with bluegrass heavy-...

Dick Knight is a professional musician, retired school teacher, and 2018 North Carolina Heritage Award recipient. He's is one of several excellent soul, R&B and funk musicians with deep ties to eastern North Carolina, but his Kinston story is an unlikely one. In this episode of Arts Across NC, we get the scoop on how Kinston led this music-loving Georgia native to James Brown, and a fulfilling car...

Asha Bala is a passionate advocate, instructor, and performer of Bharata Natyam, an ancient South Indian classical dance, that communicates ancient Hindu spiritual stories through intricate hand gestures, facial expressions, and footwork. She first encountered the dance as a young child in Mumbai in the 1950s during an era of national cultural revitalization in a newly independent India. She's per...

In this episode, we meet Tony Williamson, a 2018 North Carolina Heritage Award recipient and mandolin virtuoso, whose musical journey has taken him all over. It’s carried him to stages around the world where he’s played with bluegrass greats like Bill Monroe, Sam Bush, and Ricky Skaggs. It’s transported him into a hospital room where he was told he’d never play music again, and it’s led him to an...

Sawmilling is heritage for Glenn Bolick, a potter, musician, storyteller from Caldwell County. Glenn is a fifth-generation sawmill man, and in this bonus episode, he performs "Sawmill Man," one of his signature songs. Glenn and his wife Lula Bolick will be honored at the 2018 North Carolina Heritage Awards Ceremony on May 23 in downtown Raleigh. Tickets are available at www.pinecone.org. _________...

In this special season of Arts Across NC, we meet the 2018 North Carolina Heritage Award recipients who will be celebrated at a performance and ceremony on May 23, 2018 in Raleigh, NC. These artists are being honored for deepening awareness of the stories, music, and artistry that encompass and define North Carolina's diverse cultural traditions. Glenn and Lula Bolick have carried many traditions...

M.C. Taylor and Phil Cook are two anchors of Durham's indie music community. Phil is known for making music with his band Megafaun and The Guitarheels and for playing in M.C.'s American folk band Hiss Golden Messenger, an outfit widely praised for its genre-blending soul-searching music. In this episode, they reflect on how collaboration, community, and a deep appreciation for North Carolina's mus...

Creativity is at the heart of the Freelon family. In an intimate conversation, Phil Freelon, best known for leading the design team of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and his son Pierce Freelon, Durham-based hip-hop artist and professor, open up about how the arts define their family. Catch the full interview at www.ncarts50.org. Arts Across NC is a podcast by and abou...

Vollis Simpson may be North Carolina's most famous self-taught artist. His massive, whimsical whirligigs have attracted curious travelers to eastern North Carolina for decades, and they now anchor the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park in historic downtown Wilson. In this episode, we explore how the park came to be, and why it's now a national model for arts driven economic development. *** This episod...

North Carolina's Statewide Arts Celebration has officially begun. Arts organizations in all 100 counties have dedicated arts events to the North Carolina Arts Council's 50th Anniversary. The 175+ concerts, exhibits, performances, festivals, and classes that make up the celebration showcase the many ways North Carolinians participate in the arts and create art. In this episode, Wayne Martin, Execut...

North Carolina is known for its traditional arts, and they are thriving in the hands of millennial artists. This weekend, the diversity and vibrancy of our state's evolving cultural heritage will be celebrated in the NC Folklife Area of the National Folk Festival in Greensboro, NC. In this episode, Sally Peterson, the Folklife Director at the North Carolina Arts Council, makes a compelling case fo...

David Sedaris moved from Binghamton, NY to Raleigh, NC right before he started the third grade, and one of the first words he learned here was Yankee. Adjusting to life in North Carolina wasn't easy, but David found his place in the arts. In an exclusive interview for the North Carolina Arts Council's 50 for 50 Project, best-selling author David Sedaris shares his North Carolina Arts story. Arts A...

Forty years ago, the American Dance Festival moved to Durham, NC. Every summer since, one of America’s most important dance institutions has attracted choreographers, dancers and audiences from all over the world to the heart of North Carolina for a six week-long modern dance festival. The North Carolina Arts Council was an avid supporter of ADF from the very beginning. In this episode, Nancy Trov...

Artists matter in North Carolina. As creators, interpreters and educators, they play an instrumental role in the vitality of our state. In 1980, the North Carolina Arts Council solidified the State's commitment to artists by creating the Artist Fellowship Program. Since then, the N.C. Arts Council has awarded over $5 million to hundreds of artists to support artist development and encourage new wo...

Raleigh native Charles R. “Chuck” Davis, who became one of the world’s foremost teachers and choreographers of African dance, is being remembered across North Carolina and the country today for his artistry, his contributions to American dance and his ability to use art to promote peace and healing. A distinguished teacher, choreographer, and ambassador for dance, Davis passed away at his home on...

Founded in 1967, the North Carolina Arts Council grew out of the national statewide arts movement. In the first podcast episode of Arts Across NC, North Carolina Arts Council Executive Director Wayne Martin joins host Sandra Davidson to talk about the council’s early vision, his personal connection to the arts and what’s in store for the North Carolina Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary season.