TALKERS AND TELLERS PROGRAMS
Sharing stories is a daily part of nearly everyone's life; through both the listening to and the telling and retelling of events and activities we share knowledge and build relationships. In every family, community, work, or social group, some individuals are acknowledged for their special skill in telling jokes and stories. Through language, timing, and expressive body language, their artistry as a "talker or teller" is greatly appreciated by their audiences. Sometimes their performances are so skillful and beloved that they are asked to repeat the stories time and again. At the National Folk Festival, there will be a number of "Talker and Teller" programs. Some of these sessions will feature individuals who have special knowledge to share about a particular topic; others will feature individuals known for their storytelling abilities. Most of the sessions will occur on the Crossroads Stage but others will be in the Children's Folk Arts Activities Area and the "Great Lakes, Great Quilts" area. Kids can explore their own folk traditions during the Children's Folklore Workshops, where kids can share jokes, games, rhymes, sayings, songs, tricks, and family stories.

Oneida Stories
Robert Brown
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Robert Brown works at the Oneida Nation's cultural heritage department where he fulfills a traditional speaking role in the practice of the longhouse religious tradition. Bob learned to tell stories as a child by listening to his grandparents, uncles, aunts, and others in the community. Stories are not only an integral part of Bob's life; they are an integral part of tribal life. It is through stories that the traditions and beliefs of the Oneida people are passed on from one generation to the next. By sharing these stories at the National Folk Festival, Bob hopes that more people will become better acquainted with the Oneida people and their culture. In the Oneida tradition, animal stories are not told until the first snow. Since this is unlikely to occur in August, Bob will be sharing stories of the Three Sisters (squash, maize, and beans), including a story or two in the Oneida language.

TRADITIONAL CRAFTS TENT
How do you make a toy boat that really floats? A paper airplane that flies? A cootie catcher that can tell what's on your mind? What's the coolest way to decorate your backpack or make a friendship bracelet? Kids learn these and other traditions from other kids. Here's a chance to learn something new, or share something you already know with others. Local youth groups from the Lansing area are volunteering to teach their traditional crafts to festival youth. Make something to take home and share with your friends!

CHILDREN'S TRADITIONAL CULTURE
Children's culture is mostly traditional. Even in infancy children begin participating in and learning traditional games such as peek-a-boo and patty-cake. Throughout childhood and adolescence they participate in traditional learning songs, rhymes, sayings, puzzles, rituals, customs and games with their peers, older youth, and adults. Although adults are clearly important teachers of all knowledge for children, much of children's traditions are passed on continuously from child to child; children are both the teachers and the learners. By the time children enter school they are already skilled in a wide realm of knowledge areas.

Students from the Center for Language, Culture, and Communication Arts (CLCCA) Elementary School
Lansing, Michigan
Students at this Lansing elementary magnet school [hail] come from many countries, enhancing their school culture with [a variety of] their many languages and traditions. The mission of the CLCCA is to create a unique [global,] learning environment based on the premise that diversity enriches the lives of everyone. At the festival, students and their families [will] demonstrate folk games and crafts--from jump rope to marbles to top spinning--many of which they learned in their native countries and still play with friends and family in the neighborhood and school yard.

CHILDRENS' TRADITIONAL GAMES
Like other forms of folklore, traditional games often are learned informally within family or peer groups. Traditional forms of play are most associated with children. Hide 'n seek, hopscotch, jump rope, and other games teach youngsters important cultural values, rules, and social roles. Many games involve verbal skills such as tongue twisters, riddles, game songs, or rhymes, some of recent origin, others centuries old. Games testing dexterity and physical abilities are found around the world. American examples include jacks, marbles, or "Capture the Flag." Modern technology has given rise to new forms of play, such as skateboard tricks and computer games.

Traditional Games
Traditional games are played throughout the world, by individuals and groups of all ages, with formal or informal rules, and at homes, schools, work, and a variety of community settings. Traditional games are most often learned by observing and participating in a game; teachers are most often a parent or other familiar adult, a sibling, or a friend.

Games play a critical role in fostering and maintaining ethnic and group identity, acquiring physical and intellectual skills, learning cultural knowledge, and developing and negotiating social relationships. At this year's National Folk Festival, marbles and the traditional card games of cribbage and buck euchre are featured Many more games will be available in the Children's Folk Arts Festival section of the festival.

Marble Games Tent
Calling all mibsters, young and old(er) to join the fun in the marble yards. Find out how to dust your thumb and knuckle-down, try marble-shooting, and discover the fun of playing marbles. Champion-level, marble-playing teenagers from Tennessee will teach and demonstrate ringer and other marble games. Students from Lansing's Center for Language, Culture and Communication Arts will demonstrate marble games from Haiti, Cuba, and Liberia. A practice area allows visitors to learn and share techniques and games.

Marbles
Molly Reecer, Coy and Molly Tinsley, Travis Cherry Clay County, Tennessee
In Clay County, Tennessee, playing marbles is a community and family tradition. Men play a local game called "roley hole" in backyard, dirt marble yards. Boys practice and play along, hoping to join the men. The traditional game of "ringer" is also played, and kids now compete in ringer in the elementary schools to choose contestants for the National Marbles Tournament in Wildwood, New Jersey. There games are played in a ten-foot diameter circle on a concrete surface. The tournament offers kids ages 7 to 14 a chance to compete and also meet other marbles enthusiasts like themselves. Typically, youth practice five days a week in order to gain the skill and confidence to compete on a national level. An International Marbles Festival at which groups from all over the world gather to share marble games is now held annually in a Tennessee state park. At the 2001 National Folk Festival, three Clay County teens will teach ringer, basic marble shooting, and other marble games. Molly Reecer is the 1996 girls' champion of the National Marbles Tournament, setting a record for the longest final 15 games. Reecer practiced for ten hours a day in the days before winning the championship. She now chaperones other Clay County girls to the tournament. High school students Coy and Molly Tinsley competed and placed in the national tournament. To practice for the tournaments, the Tinsleys invited friends over for picnics and marble playing so they could gather other good marble players at their home and advance their skill level. The three marble players will be accompanied by Travis Cherry, himself a roley hole player, who now promotes the playing of marbles among Clay County youth by serving as a marbles coach and running the county tournaments. Cherry has led Tennessee contestants to Wildwood and demonstrated marbles at international events in England.

Traditional Card Games
A deck of cards and a 15-minute break is all workers at automotive plants, government and university offices, retail businesses, and other work settings need to find relief from their jobs and enjoy social time by playing euchre with their co-workers. At senior citizens centers, veterans halls, recreation centers, and fraternal organizations, people gather to socialize while playing whist, canasta, or skip-bo. At cottages, cabins, fishing and deer camps, friends and relatives while away their leisure time playing hearts, gin rummy, and cribbage.

Traditional card games are important recreational activities that most players learn from friends or relatives. Children begin with easy games such as war, hearts, and go fish. Some games are popular within certain age or social groups, some are more popular in certain regions than others. Many are relatively easy to learn, all require minimal and easily portable equipment, and, except for solitaire, all have a social dimension.

Cribbage
Harlan MacDowell, Grand Ledge, Michigan
Douglas MacDowell, Fredericksburg, Virginia
Paul MacDowell, Kingston, New York
Chris Luz, East Lansing, Michigan
Regina Luz, East Lansing, Michigan
Hugh MacDowell, Grand Ledge, Michigan
Cribbage is a card game for which you need a deck of cards (poker), a cribbage board (to keep score), and at least two people. When two people play, each person is dealt six cards. From those six cards, each person discards two cards to the "crib." Points are awarded for pairs, runs held in hand, and combinations of cards that add up to fifteen resulting in the common counting chants "15-2, 15-4, 15-6....." When laying down cards points are also awarded but the total cannot exceed 31; the player who comes closest to 31 without going over gets one point. The 1st person to score 121 points wins. Cribbage is the card game of choice whenever the extended family of patriarch Harlan MacDowell get together, whether at home or on fishing trips or reunions. Harlan recalls learning the game at an early age from his father, George MacDowell, and grandfather, Clarence MacDowell. George, a woodworker by trade, made several cribbage boards including one table-sized one inherited by his son Forrest. Harlan's son Doug recalls many times playing cribbage after dinner with his dad while listening to the Tiger baseball games on the radio; they played on one of George's boards and used toothpicks, matches, and nails for pegs, but never a properly carved cribbage peg. Today, Doug, his brothers Bruce and Paul, and his brother-in-law, Chris Luz, all each have several boards, all of them unique and some designed for three players. Together with Hugh MacDowell and Regina Luz of the next generation, they carry on this family card tradition.

Minnesota Buck Euchre
John Burton
Fridley, Minnesota
John Burton learned to play Buck Euchre while attending Southwest Minnesota State College (now Southwest State University) in the late 1960s. In this area of southwestern Minnesota, consisting primarily of rural families with German, Swedish, and Norwegian roots, everybody grew up playing this unique variant of Euchre. It is a fun, fast game, with lots of different possible plays, but not so complicated that you can't spend plenty of time socializing. The play of the cards is similar to Euchre but aspects such as bidding are similar to Hasenpfeffer. Other aspects specific to the game are: 1) each player starts with 36 points and must get down to 0 to win; 2) players must bid to get out of the game; 3) highest bid calls the trump/suit; and 4) all the cards (Ace to 9) are used in play. John speculates that the game became so popular in that primarily rural area as it is a good game to play in family situations; there are fewer cards for children to have to hold in their hands.
Since playing cards is a lot more fun than studying, John soon picked up the game. Continuing his education (he didn't just play cards!) at Michigan State University, John was surprised to learn that no one knew the game. As Mayo Hall's resident director, John became a goodwill ambassador, enthusiastically teaching the game to the residents. There is now a small but growing multi-generational group of people in Michigan playing this SW Minnesota variant of Buck Euchre. At the National Folk Festival, John will continue passing on the game to others while playing a few hands with his old MSU buddies and their families and catching up on the news, just as he does every time he gets back to Michigan.

YOUTH TRADITIONAL DANCE
Traditional dance is important in many ethnic communities. Passing on dance traditions to young people within the community takes a variety of forms --they may learn informally by observation, repetition, and trial and error at family and communal events, such as weddings, graduation parties, pow wows, and community festivals, or be formally taught by dance instructors. With some forms of dance, young people demonstrate their skills at competitive events, earning prestige and progressing in level. At such times, what dancers wear while dancing is important to both outsiders and insiders. To outsiders the dancers communicate their ethnic or other group identity; to insiders, the intricate details of shoes, hair styles, accessories, colors, and clothing all communicate skill level, gender, and type of dance performed.

African American Stepping
Rhythm and Sound Academy
Kwame Smith, Founder and Instructor
Detroit, Michigan
Stepping is a highly energetic performance art that combines polyrhythmic movements of the body, foot stomping, hand clapping and song. This requires a great amount of physical coordination and muscle control, so students drill their dance moves over and over with the help of a watchful teacher. Some of the moves that will be demonstrated by this group are "Over-Under," "Tricky," "Tricky-Modified," and "Walk It Up" and a number of variations on these. The tradition of these precise movements in unison and the performance of "Step Shows" began on college campuses, yet the practice itself grew out of polyrhythmic dance and percussion arts from West and Central Africa. Stepping has been equally influenced by many other arts in America such as tap-dancing and marching bands. After mastering this dance form as a member of a fraternity at Xavier University in Louisiana, Kwame Smith has brought the skill and enjoyment of stepping to over 700 students in the Detroit area. This performance art, which had been historically exclusive to African American fraternities and sororities, is now becoming more recognized in popular culture and Kwame Smith is spreading the knowledge to younger populations. As the founder and instructor of the Rhythm and Sound Academy, Kwame strives to instill in his students a sense of discipline, focus, and most of all, a sense of unity. One can see the unified relationships and the mental and physical preparations that these students have made when they perform. The performers at the 2001 National Folk Festival have been selected by Kwame to represent the various age groups that he instructs. Kwame Smith is responsible for teaching seven, sometimes more, classes, workshops and rehearsals throughout each week.

Irish-American Step Dancing
Heinzman School of Irish Dance
John and Liz Heinzman, instructors
Detroit and Lansing, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio Within Irish-American communities, children learn step dancing from certified instructors and compete in Irish Dancing Commission-sanctioned events called feiseanna. As they compete in a feis (pronounced "fesh") against children their own age and skill level, dancers progress from beginner to novice and up to championship levels of skill, "placing" in each type of dance--jig, reel, and hornpipe. Dance costumes are earned as dancers become more experienced. Each school of Irish dance has its own costume design and colors. The Heinzman School, started in 1994 by John and Liz Heinzman, instructs youth in southeast and now Lansing, Michigan and northwest Ohio. The Heinzmans grew up and competed in Irish dance in the Detroit area where their Irish-born mother was active in the Gaelic League. For the Henizmans, to teach kids Irish dance is more than passing on techniques and skills; they also feel a personal commitment to share Irish heritage. For some students, connecting with heritage is a motivation to "dance Irish," while for others it is a family tradition. When not dancing at competitions, young people perform step dancing at parties, weddings, and funerals within Irish-American communities. More children from non-Irish backgrounds have become interested in the dance form in recent years.

Native American Pow Wow Dance
Youth from the Woodland Indian Center
Lansing, Michigan
Pow wows are important Native American social and cultural gatherings at which music and dance are integral parts. In the Great Lakes region, depending on whether the pow wow is competitive or traditional (non-competitive), honor, welcome, social, exhibition, or competitive dances are interspersed between songs. In the Great Lakes, the most common social dances in the Great Lakes are the Round Dance, Snake Dance, Crow Hops, and Two-step. Exhibition dances typically feature the six styles of dance used in competitions: "Traditional' (for men and women), "Fancy" and "Grass" (for men only), and "Fancy Shawl" and "Jingle" (for women only). Common to all pow wow dances in this region are the consistent drum beat and a similarity to the footwork that makes up the dances. The regalia (apparel) of the dancers is also important; certain dances require dancers to wear particular types of regalia. Youth begin accompanying adults in dances at very young ages; some competitive pow wows even have a "Toddler's" judging category. Typically younger dancers perform the more energetic forms of dances. While children can learn by simply watching others and by trial and error, mastery of certain steps and the stories behind the dances are learned from more experienced family or community members. In Lansing, such instruction is offered at the Woodland Indian Center. At the 2001 National Folk Festival, young dancers from the center will demonstrate different types of dances.

Scottish American Highland Dancing
Kathleen McMahon, instructor
Farmington Hills, Michigan
Scottish Highland dancing is taught in codified ways to young people by certified instructors. Throughout the world where Scottish descendents live, Scottish organizations hold annual festivals called "highland games" at which people perform and compete in various styles of Scottish dance--including lilts, reels, and flings--earning prizes, medals, and trophies, and in doing so, they progress in skill level. Community events such as dinners and parties are also opportunities for highland dancers to share their skills within the community. Beginners dance the same steps as more advanced dancers, the only difference being in mastery. Key elements of dance costumes include imported Scottish tartan skirts and kilts, blouses, vests, and coordinating argyle knee-high socks. Like the precision required of Highland dancing, the costume also demands precise measurements and styling. Dance music is traditionally by local bagpipers. For 35 years, Kathleen McMahon has been dancing Scottish Highland dance, and teaching in her basement studio for ten. Currently she has 30 students who come from all over southern Michigan. In 1997, she and seven students competed in Scotland where they were awarded over 50 medals and trophies.