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NC Folk

Helping communities across the state connect their heritage arts and traditions to local development, education, and active citizenship

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What We Do

The North Carolina Folklife Institute promotes the preservation, appreciation and understanding of the folklife heritage and culture in North Carolina. We do this through documentation projects, festival production, community education programming, research, print, and audio publications, and cultivating a vast network of community and folk arts organizations in North Carolina.

In our four decades of programming we’ve:

  • Produced North Carolina’s first statewide folklife festival
  • Documented and recorded hundreds of North Carolina tradition bearers
  • Helped produce compilations of North Carolina folk musicians
  • Empowered North Carolinians through community documentation

Some of the North Carolina Folklife Institute’s recent projects include:

  • Documenting and interpreting Lexington, North Carolina’s earliest indoor barbecue pits
  • Curating North Carolina folklife programming at the 76th annual National Folk Festival
  • Cultural mapping projects in Cumberland, Hoke, Robeson, Scotland, and Harnett Counties
  • Creating Inside NC, our first podcast series

And some of the newest projects we’ve got in the works are:

  • Archiving and interpreting hundreds of historical Appalachian recordings, photographs and films
  • Documenting the living and historical folk traditions of the Roanoke-Albemarle region of North Carolina
  • Improving access to the valuable reports NC Folk has created over the years, covering many aspects of our state’s varied folklife.

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