New York Folklore Society Board

As we look through the lens of folklore, we learn important things about ourselves and our neighbors—the dazzling variety of cultural creativity and expression by ordinary people, the always evolving traditions that bind us into groups and sustain us through good times and bad. The New York Folklore Society works to foster the vitality, persistence, and understanding of the folklore and folklife that enrich groups and communities in New York and beyond.

The New York Folklore Society board of directors is a diverse group of people, bringing a varied set of skills to the organization. Our goal to “recognize and incorporate the perspectives and contributions of diverse audiences/constituencies throughout every level of the New York Folklore Society, its programs, and services” necessarily includes those who serve on our board of directors. We continually seek greater ethnic diversity in our governance. In keeping with the original intent of the society’s founders, we also strive to include board members who represent the geography of New York State. Our board members come from throughout the state, including Genessee, Dutchess, Oswego, Broome, Warren, Nassau, Schenectady, and Columbia counties, as well as Manhattan and the Bronx. We include folklorists, archivists, arts administrators, business people, university professors, and a lawyer. Serving on our board of directors requires membership in the New York Folklore Society, as well as a commitment to the nurturance of New York’s cultural traditions.
—Ellen McHale, Executive Director

NYFS Establishes Advisory Committee

At the February 2008 meeting of the board of directors of the New York Folklore Society, the society approved the formation of an advisory committee. The New York Folklore Society advisory committee will provide guidance, advice, and assistance to the New York Folklore Society’s board of directors on (1) issues related to the field and the organization where members have specialized knowledge, skills, and backgrounds that will advance the work of the society, and (2) increasing the society’s outreach and incorporating the perspectives of numerous stakeholders.

The advisory committee allows the New York Folklore Society to broaden its outreach and incorporate perspectives from allied fields. It is a way to formalize the relationship with people who have institutional memory or specific expertise that is helpful, but who are unable to serve as members of the board of directors. Advisory committee members will be individuals respected within the fields or sectors from which they come, who have depth and breadth of knowledge to bring to the society. Honorary vice presidents of the society (a program, outlined in the society’s bylaws, to honor significant members) will automatically become members of the advisory committee.

Advisory committee members will be appointed by the New York Folklore Society’s board of directors and will serve for renewable two-year terms. Recommendations for advisory committee appointments can be made by any member of the society and will be accepted throughout the year. To make a recommendation, please contact Executive Director Ellen McHale, or any of the current board members of the society.

New York Folklore Society
P.O. Box 764
Schenectady, NY 12301
518/346-7008
Fax 518/346-6617
nyfs@nyfolklore.org

About the New York Folklore Society

NYFS BOARD MEMBERS

Gabrielle M. Hamilton, President, 2010-2012

Gabrielle M. Hamilton is a folklorist with extensive expertise in the Indigenous and Hispanic traditions of the Americas. She currently serves as a program director and archivist at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance. At the Center, Ms. Hamilton conducts research and develops programs in collaboration with master artists in New York’s Colombian community. From 2003 to 2008, she founded and directed the initiative Pachamama Peruvian Arts (based in Queens) which develops the Peruvian traditional performing arts in partnerships with local community organizations through weekly educational classes, workshops, and presentations. This program is a now vital part of the New York Latino landscape, and has gone on to be an independent non-profit organization. Hamilton has served as the Director and Senior Researcher of the Repatriation Office at Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian; conducted extensive research on the Native collections at Utah State University (where she received her Master’s Degree in Folklore) and currently serves as a consultant for Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy, where she is an honorary member. She also has lived and taught on the Navajo Reservation and in American Samoa; and has conducted folklore residencies for schools, museums, arts councils and prisons.

Elena Martinez, Vice-President, 2010-2012

Elena Martinez received M.A.s in Folklore and Anthropology at the University of Oregon. As staff folklorist at City Lore: The New York Center for Urban Folk Culture she is the primary fieldworker and researcher for Place Matters, and the sub-project, the South Bronx Latin Music Project, conducting interviews with musicians from the South Bronx, photo and archival research, and producing public programs. She is also the co-producer of the PBS documentary, From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale. She curated the exhibition, "¡Que bonita bandera!": The Puerto Rican Flag as Folk Art, which traveled through the tri-state area, and co-produced the exhibition, A Float for All Seasons: New York City’s Ethnic Parades at the Museum of the City of New York. As a student of Rosa Elena Egipciaco, a master in the art of mundillo, Puerto Rican bobbin lace, and National Heritage Award winner, she has also worked with and organized programs pertaining to this craft.

Delcy Ziac Fox, Secretary-Treasurer, 2010-2012

Delcy Ziac Fox develops marketing communications plans and oversees the execution of strategies and tactics for non-profit businesses and corporate clients. Fox has worked in higher education in New York state and Hawaii and at marketing services agencies in Albany, New Jersey, and New York City. Fox is VP Collegiate Relations for the American Marketing Association, former VP Communications for the Gift Planning Group of Northeastern New York, Class Agent for her alma mater, Wesleyan University, and Former Chair of the Wesleyan Annual Fund. Fox volunteers for Van Antwerp Middle School and Hilllside Elementary School and serves as Secretary to the Parent-Teacher Organization Council for the Niskayuna Central School District. Fox holds a Master of Science in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Master of Arts in biological anthropology from the University at Albany, and a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and biology from Wesleyan University.

Polly Adema

Polly Adema holds an M.A. in Folklore (Indiana University) and a Ph.D. in American Studies (University of Texas at Austin). She joined the Dutchess County Arts Council as the staff folklorist in August, 2007. Prior to taking the Poughkeepsie position, the Buffalo (NY) native worked with arts and culture organizations in Nevada, Wyoming, South Carolina, Washington DC, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Texas. Her particular areas of interest include community celebrations and foodways. In addition to her work as a folklorist, Polly writes and cooks in her role as a culinary anthropologist, and when time permits, she teaches at area colleges. Among her recent projects are an ethnography of Gilroy, California and its food-themed place branding as Garlic Capital of the World. This study of how food comes to be associated with place is the subject of her book Garlic Capital of the World: The Making of a Festive Foodscape (University Press of Mississippi). She actively participates in and presents at professional and academic organizations, including the American Folklore Society, the American Studies Association, and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Polly also offers culinary and food history classes at epicurean and specialty events.

Jean Crandall

Jean Crandall served as Staff Folklorist at the Dutchess County Arts Council in Poughkeepsie from 1997-2004. She produced a core of annual programs which included the founding of “One River, Many Streams” folklife festivals in Poughkeepsie and Beacon; “La Navidad en Nuestro Pueblo” an annual celebration in partnership with local Latino communities presenting Christmas traditions; and other special projects. Crandall has also served as consulting folklorist for a wide range of organizations including the Historical Society of Rockland County, the Hudson Valley Writer’s Center, the Bardavon 1869 Opera House, the Council on the Arts and Humanities of Staten Island, Eldridge Street Project and the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum. Crandall travels to Mexico regularly, and works with Mexican folk artists through her company La Mula Chula. She is currently completing the certification process for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages K-12, and teaches adults in the evening.

Karyl Eaglefeathers

Karyl Denison (McIntosh) Eaglefeathers worked with Norman Studer to direct the Catskill Folk Festivals in the 1970s. After the last festival in 1979, she began studying for her Ph.D. in folklore at Indiana University. She is now an assistant professor at Empire State College.

Ellen Fladger

Ellen Fladger is head of Special Collections/Archivist for the Union College’s Schaeffer Library, Schenectady, NY. She holds a Master’s in Folklore from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Folk Cultural Studies and post-Master’s certificates form Columbia University’s School of Library Science. She serves as a consultant for archival projects throughout New York State.

Jan Hanvik

Jan Hanvik has been Executive Director of Columbia County Council on the Arts since July 2002. Prior to that, he was Interim Executive Director of the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Prior to that, he promoted performing arts exchanges throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe as Executive Director of Pan American Musical Art Research. A former modern dancer, he switched to arts management during a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award residency in El Salvador. He held another Fulbright Award teaching arts management in Uruguay and Argentina, a subject he has also taught in Costa Rica, Chile, and Russia, and for which he has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University. He holds a BFA from City College of the City University of New York and an MA from New York University. He is a former consultant with the Ford Foundation (as well as a grant recipient), the Compton Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Something he especially enjoys about his work in Columbia County is the broad support of the business, arts, government, social service, agricultural, and schools communities, to diversify the arts and audiences, and to integrate the arts into society as a whole.

Alice Lai

Alice Lai is Assistant Professor in the Arts and Educational Studies at SUNY-Empire State College. She received a B.A. in Art and a M.A. in Art Education at California State University, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Art Education at The Ohio State University. At Empire State College, she develops and chairs an arts program. She also teaches courses regularly in the areas of art and art education. She is the author of several entirely online undergraduate courses including Artistic Expression in a Multicultural America and Images of Women. Collaborating with NYFS, she co-developed and taught a course for the Summer Field School Exploring Place: Documenting Your Community’s Culture and Traditions. Through teaching these courses, she invites students to research visual culture, material culture, folk traditions, and arts and craft in their communities. Her students have learned to interview local artists and identify and document local traditions. Through the lens of critical cultural study, visual cultural study, and multiculturalism, she has coauthored a number of articles investigating community based and place based artistic expression such as yard art in upstate New York and argues for the importance of place-based pedagogy for the arts and humanities. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Studies in Art Education and Pedagogy.

Jessica Schein

Jessica Schein was born and bred in New York City. She has a B.A. in Accounting from Brooklyn College and an M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from Columbia Business School. She now works as a part-time accountant/controller for several small non-profit organizations in NYC, having been in financial positions for non-profits and large corporations. She has had a life-long interest in folklore, well before she even knew that such a field existed.

Libby Tucker

Libby Tucker, Professor of English at Binghamton University, discovered the field of folklore while working on an M.A. with Lydia Fish at Buffalo State College. After receiving her M.A., she joined the Peace Corps and did field research on women’s initiation rituals in the Ivory Coast, West Africa. Libby received her Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University. She edited New York Folklore for several years and is currently on the editorial board of Voices: The Journal of New York Folklore; she also edits Children’s Folklore Review, Children’s Folklore eNewsletter, and FOAFtale News. She serves as president of the Children’s Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society and has enjoyed chairing CFS’s Newell Committee, Opie Committee, and Aesop Prize Committee. Tucker’s main areas of interest include children’s and adolescents’ folklore, women’s rituals, folklore of the supernatural, and the folklore of folklorists. Her book Campus Legends was published in 2005; Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses was published in 2007, and Children’s Folklore: A Handbook was published in 2008. She loves to travel, swim, and plan family get-togethers.

Tom van Buren

Tom van Buren is the Director of Folk Arts and of Performance Programs for ArtsWestchester, the Arts Council of Westchester County, New York. An arts presenter with extensive public sector folk arts experience in field research, performance programs, and media productions, he earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland (2001), writing on the practice of music and dance in the francophone West African immigrant community of New York City. His areas of cultural expertise include also expressive cultures of the Caribbean, and the Middle East, as well as the wider topic of cultural migration and transnational communities. From 1994 to 2003, he worked on cultural programs related to immigrant communities of the New York metropolitan area for the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, including concert and festival productions and audio-visual documentation projects. From 1996 to 2000, he was project director of the Dominican Community Cultural Initiative which founded the Quisqueya en el Hudson Festival in Washington Heights, New York. In this capacity, he worked in collaborative community cultural organizing, field research, and artistic programming within the Dominican community of New York. He was co-editor/compiler of the Global Beat of the Boroughs CD series for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, for which he also produced two other albums: Badenya: Manden Music in New York City (2002) and Quisqueya en el Hudson: Dominican Music in New York (2004). Since 2003, he has produced public programs for ArtsWestchester (formerly the Westchester Arts Council), including concerts, festivals, and material arts exhibitions featuring primarily immigrant community-based artists of the lower Hudson Valley. In 2006 and 2007 and currently, he has written and administered grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for a multicultural concert series called Worlds Of Westchester, and a two-part program of Asian Indian culture and the current Latino Cultural Initiative. He is also an adjunct professor of music at Mercy College.

Paul Mercer, Past President, 2009-2011

Paul Mercer studied Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and received his Masters in Information Science from the University at Albany. He has worked at the New York State Library since 1979, and has been a Senior Librarian in Manuscripts and Special Collections since 1986. In addition to acquiring collections and documents for the library, he is responsible for map collections, and for the library’s extensive music holdings. As a researcher he studies the complex interplay between song writing, broadside ballads and songsters, and vernacular music traditions. By avocation he is a folk musician and singer-songwiter who tours New York and neighboring states, (as well as making occasional forays into Canada and the UK) as part of the performing duo, “Alien Folklife.”