2023 Year in Review
2023 has been a tremendous year for Vermont Folklife—we’ve fully integrated Young Tradition Vermont’s programming, carried out successful research projects, and shared our work with people across the state through events, exhibits, listening parties, and more. We hope you’ll take a minute to help us celebrate the accomplishments your generosity helped make possible.
Ian Dury joined the Vermont Folklife staff in January as the Director of Young Tradition Vermont, and in July we completed the transition process, taking on the administration of YTV programs. This included going on tour to Cape Breton with the 2023 Touring Group, running a dynamic Trad Camp with three dozen students, and beginning rehearsals with the 2024 Touring Group ahead of its June 2024 trip to Quebec. Ian also launched a new program, a bi-weekly music jam for all ages at the Fletcher Free Library called Fam Jam, and has a fabulous series of Fiddleheads classes in store for 2024.
In May, Mary Welsey became our new Director of Education and Media, after holding a variety of roles at Vermont Folklife over the years. Mary not only collaborates with other staff on research projects, she also trains fellow Vermonters in learning and employing ethnographic methods in their own communities, co-coordinates our Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, and plays a key role in nearly every other Vermont Folklife program.
Through multiple partnerships, VT Folklife staff have supported local organizations and community members in creating new research and cultural documentation. Our 2023 research efforts included:
Interviews with turkey hunters, biologists, and wildlife management specialists as part of an oral history project with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the reintroduction of wild turkeys to the state.
Associate Director and Archivist (and resident comic nerd) Andy interviewed a group of Vermont cartoonists to learn about how being from, and living in, Vermont shaped their work and shared his findings at the American Folklore Society conference.
With support from VT Folklife staff, our longtime collaborator Mary Simons completed an online paper titled, A Snapshot of Act 77 Implementation: “…It relies on Superheroes…”, based on 22 interviews conducted with school staff and administrators around the state. This project was tied to the 10th anniversary of the passing of Act 77, Vermont’s education policy regarding personalized learning in schools, and was the result of a collaboration between Mary and former VT Folklife Director of Education, Sasha Antohin.
Our Vermont Afterschool Grant wrapped up this fall after a year and a half of exciting programming, including providing support for the 2023 Trad Camp, the ONE (Old North End) Sarangi Band and ONE Sings in Burlington, and last summer’s Afghan Ats Camp in Brattleboro. The grant also funded Tibetan dance classes, and the purchase of traditional Tibetan clothing for the dancers, who performed this fall at the Tibet Festival in Burlington.
We Partnered with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) on “in our words; in our community an exhibit that amplifies the voices of our neighbors experiencing the complex dynamics of homelessness, food insecurity, and economic challenges. The pop-up exhibit, featuring portraits and interview excerpts, was displayed at seven outdoor locations around the state.
Other exhibits, including Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage and Pride 1983, traveled to eight locations from Brattleboro to Burlington over the course of the year.
Our Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program includes a whopping 18 mentor/apprentice pairs this year–supporting artforms ranging from Barre granite carving to Burundian Dance.
This fall we hosted four Listening Parties across the state, at which people gathered to listen to clips of audio from our Archive, and share their own memories. Listening Parties are one of our favorite ways to get out into the community and share the richness of Vermont Folklife’s archival holdings with the public. See the playlist from one of our listening parties here.
The second annual Non-Fiction Comics Fest took place in November at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington. This project brought together dozens of cartoonists who use their art to explore and explain the world, along with hundreds of visitors who attended talks and workshops and explored works of nonfiction cartooning on display.
Finally, over the course of the year, Vermont Folklife staff attended and spoke at conferences and events ranging from the Oral History Association Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD, to online meetings hosted by the Library of Congress and the American Folklore Society, to the New England Museum Association conference in Portland, ME, to the Vermont Alliance on the Social Studies conference in Burlington, VT. Meeting with our colleagues from other organizations allows us to make valuable connections, and often leads to future projects.
