National Endowment for the Arts Celebrates Folk Traditions at Lisner

Free performance features 2014 NEA National Heritage Fellowship winners.

September 22, 2014

NEA

Nine artists who won National Heritage Fellowship awards performed at Lisner Auditorium.

The National Endowment for the Arts showcased the talents of its 2014 National Heritage Fellowship winners during a free performance Friday at Lisner Auditorium. The National Heritage Fellowship is the highest honor for individuals whose work preserves American arts heritage and traditions.

At Friday’s show, the nine award recipients put the country’s diverse custures on display with Irish dance performances, Mexican-American tejano music, Native-American crafts demonstrations and more. Nick Spitzer, the voice behind the New Orleans-based radio program “American Routes,” hosted the evening and led conversations with the featured artists. For more highlights, check out George Washington Today’s photos below.

The Singing and Praying Bands of Maryland and Delaware open the show with a performance that combines religious worship and sacred music traditions that predate gospel, blues and jazz.

Nick Spitzer talks about basket-weaving techniques with Henry Arquette, a member of the Haudenosaunee Mohawk people whose grandfather taught him to make baskets out of black and white ash. 

Triple-threat Manuel “Cowboy” Donley, an accomplished singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer from Austin, Texas, brings Tejano music to Lisner.

Mr. Donley plays “La Múcura,” a crowd-pleaser that he said audiences always ask him to sing. 

Vera Nakonechny (second from right), a Ukrainian embroiderer, weaver and bead worker, teaches crafts in Philadelphia’s Ukrainian community.

Rufus White, a singer and drummer of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, performs as 1990 Heritage Fellow Kevin Locke demonstrates a Lakota hoop dance.

Nick Spitzer shares quilts made by Carolyn Mazloomi, an artist and advocate from West Chester, Ohio. She has drawn inspiration from African American maids of the South, motherhood and church music.

Irish step dancer Kevin Doyle performs a traditional Irish step dance and an American tap routine from the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” His daughter Shannon (left) and sister Maureen (right) joined him onstage.

Nick Spitzer speaks with Odawa artist Yvonne Walker Keshick, an artist who uses porcupine quills to decorate baskets made of birch bark. Ms. Keshick has passed her knowledge down to younger generations to preserve the tradition. 

Wendell Holmes (left) and Popsy Dixon (right) of The Holmes Brothers band play their unique blend of blues, soul, gospel and rock and roll.

Sherman Holmes, a bass guitarist who moved to New York City to pursue music, recruited his younger brother Wendell Holmes and drummer Popsy Dixon to form The Holmes Brothers.