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Smithsonian Folklife Festival
With Richard Kurin
Director, Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
Monday, June 24, 2002; 3 p.m. EDT
This year, the 2002 Smithsonian Folklife Festival focues on one theme -- "The Silk Road: Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust." The Silk Road, a series of trade routes remained the sole link between Europe and Asia for more than a thousand years -- stretching from Japan to Venice. From June 26-30 and July 3-7, the festival will be held on the National Mall and feature crafts and cultural events.
Richard Kurin, director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, will be online Monday, June 24 at 3 p.m. EDT, to discuss this year's folklife festival.
Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.
Kurin has directed the Center since 1988, having first worked for the Folklife Festival in 1976. A former Fulbright fellow with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago, his recent books include "Reflections of A Culture Broker: A View from the Smithsonian" and "Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Culture Of, By, and For the People." He developed the Save Our Sounds and Global Sound Network projects, and secured their original funding. Kurin has worked with public officials, cultural organizations, sponsors, and the media in more than 50 nations and in every region of the United States. He advises the Rockefeller Foundation, UNESCO, and the Library of Congress, and taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and George Washington University. Born in the South Bronx and raised in Queens, N.Y., Kurin lives with his wife and two daughters in Falls Church, Va., where he served as PTA president and initiator of an elementary public school magnet program used as a model by the Presidential Advisory Committee on Race.
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Arlington, Va.:
When was this year's theme chosen? And how is a theme arrived at?
Richard Kurin: The Silk Road theme was chosen in 1998 and themes are chosen either by our staff, who are doing research on various topics and come up with the idea for a festival program. Sometimes they come from outside the Smithsonian as in this case.
In this case, the idea came from Ted Levin and Yo Yo Ma.
Falls Church, Va.:
I hear Yo Yo Ma will be performing? Can you tell me what day, time and at which exhibit? Thanks a lot.
Richard Kurin: Yo Yo Ma will be performing during the festival with the Silk Road ensemble, but sometimes he will be off doing other things. So, you're just going to have to come down the festival, check the festival and maybe he'll be there.
Washington, D.C.:
Why are the weekday performances all scheduled during the day? This prevents those of us who work from taking part in a good deal of the festivities.
Richard Kurin: Not so. The main hours of the festival are from 11 - 5:30 daily, however, there are concerts and special programs every evening from 5:30 to sometimes 9 o'clock at night.
Falls Church, Va.:
Mr. Kurin,
Kudos on your past accomplishments, in general, as well as with your association as director, with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. I have enjoyed past festivals, and look forward to the future.
My question is basic. What about allowing more diversity in the area of food. There are always the large food tents, with their standard ethic foodstuffs, yet what about the myriad bazaar, full of a multitude of culturally diverse food products.
Food is covered well at the festivals, yet the opportunity to try a varied amount of foods is not as strongly covered. If a tenant goal of the Festival is to have as much experiential cultural exchange as affordable, then what better way to incorporate such a tactic then through the stomach?
Richard Kurin: I think you have a good piont. What we try to do is include food services that affect the themes of the program. So, this year, we'll have food of the Silk Road. Which means, certain foods would not be appropriate. This year at the festival we have Japanese, Chinese, Central Asian and Italian food. We have only limited hook-ups for food concessions so we can only accomodate four big food concessions in any one year and rest assured -- whatever the food is that someone would like to be represented, one year or another I guarantee it will be there.
Washington, D.C.:
I want to see the Lion Dance. Will anyone be performing it at the Festival? How do I find out when?
Richard Kurin: The best place to look for the schedule is in the Washington Post every day, one can also look online -- there's a link under the photo -- or < ahref="www.silkroadproject.org/smithsonian">www.silkroadproject.org/smithsonian. I do not know if we're doing the lion dance.
Falls Church, Va.:
I like that there's only one theme this year. Any thought to sticking with this model in the future?
Richard Kurin: It is an interesting model and the first time we've ever done it and we do think about doing such single-themed festivals in the future. There is a difficulty, which is finding the resources to pay for it.
For next year, there will be several programs -- Mali, Scotland and the birthplace of country music. In such a combination, while they representive very different regions and cultures, there are connections so that much of our american traditional music is derived from anglo-celtic sources and west african sources. Both represented. We are working on programs at the festival into the year 2012 and some years will be multi-themed, but again, as a result of the Silk Road success, we'll look to do single-themed festivals before I retire.
Arlington, Va.:
I would LOVE to see this year's Folk Life Festival but I'm afraid to be among such a large crowd of people, around the 4th of July in the capital of our nation when we are supposedly at war and the terrorists are hiding in the closets ready to jump.
I know you'll have security and police will be there and you're concerned about the possibility of terrorism on the Mall too, but I'm still too nervous to attend. What can you say to me that would convince me to come down anyway?
Richard Kurin: Its a good question, a legitimate question. My family will be here, my children volunteers, my wife and my 80-year-old mother volunteer. If my family will be here, yours can be, too.
Minneapolis, Minn.:
I have what I believe is just a technical question -- but is the festival open July 1 and 2? Those are my only free days in Washington to see the exhibit.
Thanks.
Richard Kurin: Unfortunately not, although, you can walk around the mall and get an idea of the various sites and exhibits, but there will be no Silk Road performances going on. Try to stay an extra day.
Washington, D.C.:
My boyfriend is coming up from Atlanta, GA to see this festival. He lived in China for two-and-a-half years and is very excited. I just wanted to say thank you and you should give Rajeev Sethi his own scooter!
Richard Kurin: I'm happy your boyfriend is coming up to see the festival. As for giving Mr. Sethi, the festival scenographer, his own scooter, we would like to keep him safe and doing his job. So we're protecting Rajiv from his creative self.
Washington, D.C.:
Considering the fact that the festival takes so much time to plan -- not to mention set up -- has the Smithsonian ever considered making it last longer? I'm going on vacation Saturday and won't be back till July 6. That doesn't leave a lot of time for me to visit this year's offerings.
Richard Kurin: I'm sorry. You might consider coming to the festival, a vacation in itself. We have considered making it longer. 1. It's difficult because it's more expensive and, 2. There are various regulations governing the use of the mall and the festival that restrict our ability to make it longer.
Germantown, Md.:
After watching the NBC Datline piece last night on the horrible situation of child workers in India's silk industry, I wondered now that this information has come to light how it will affect people's perception of this celebration of the "Silk Road." Can you please comment if and how this issue will be addressed at the Festival?
Richard Kurin: I didn't see the Dateline piece. I know in India we are working with the Asian Heritage Foundation -- a non-profit -- and a number of artist cooperative groups that we have a lot of trust in in terms of giving artists their proper share and treating people with respect.
The Silk Road is more about the road than about silk. A lot of products exhcanged along the silk road were made by poor artisans for kings and rulers, so sometimes activities and events where people were not treated well ended up having surprisingly good consequences down the road. I don't think we can escape that, and there will be silk fashion designers here and silkworkers here from the region and you can come and ask them directly about anything -- from child labor to wages to fairness. I think that's one of the things the festival is noted for, it's not for the purposes of propoganda, but for dialogue. If you want to know what a person thinks, anyone can ask them.
Washington, D.C.:
I volunteered this year through the Web site, but never received confirmation. Is there someone I can contact?
Richard Kurin: Yes, there is. You should call our volunteer staff -- Judy Luis-watson at 202-409-6654.
Rockville, Md:
I have attended the folklife festivals for a long time and I especially enjoy the food preparation demonstrations. I remember once when the audience could sample the dishes after they were prepared. I looked forward to those tastings. Now, and in recent years, those tastings were abolished. Do you know the reason?
Richard Kurin: Yes, I know the reason and I'm sorry their abolished -- I would like to taste as well.
The reason they were stopped was because of the public health service -- because meals are not prepared under commercial specificiations -- for example, having two sides of a sink with running hot water. So they decreed samples could not be given away. They still do demonstrations and this year they will be at both ends of the festival site in Japan and in Italy, although the cooks will be demonstrating the culinary traditions of more than a dozen cultures.
Richard Kurin: I urge all of Washington and the surrounding area to come to the festival. Particularly this year, people will have an opportunity to meet people that they would probably never in their lifetimes otherwise meet. And, I think given what we hear about or read in the news every day about Central Asia, where we see these strange names on maps, I think this festival will have put a human face on those maps.
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