The National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) The NCTA is the nation’s oldest multicultural arts presenting organization. For over eight decades, through festivals, tours, symposia, exhibits, and media productions, the NCTA has showcased the very best of the myriad grassroots folk, tribal and ethnic cultures that comprise our diverse nation.
The 2019-2020 season of Folk and Traditional Arts Network (FTAN) tours begins next Wednesday, November 20 at Salisbury University.
The National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) has partnered with the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) to establish FTAN, a presenter based membership network designed to bolster the presentation of folk and traditional arts in the mid-Atlantic region.
Through its members, FTAN aims to provide audiences and communities with direct access to folk and traditional arts and artists, increasing their community’s appreciation and understanding of cultural practice and identity. FTAN engages artists and tradition bearers that represent the breadth and diversity of folk and traditional arts across the United States and beyond, exhibit artistic excellence in their practice and demonstrate the desire to develop and expand their public presentation expertise. FTAN tour engagements include public performances or demonstrations, cultural presentations, and collaboratively planned residency activities.
The 2019-2020 tours are:
- Native Voices: Katajjaq to Hip Hop featuring Supaman and Nukariik. From practitioners of the rarely heard Inuit women’s vocal tradition of katajjaq (throat-singing) and to a Fancy Dancer/hip hop artist/beatboxer from the Crow Nation, this program explores indigenous artistic expressions, both centuries-old and contemporary, in North America.
- Aurelio, one of the most extraordinary and passionate Central American artists of his generation. Aurelio is a musical ambassador and champion of the Garifuna, a culturally threatened African Amerindian ethnic minority living primarily along the Caribbean coasts of Belize and Honduras, but also Guatemala and Nicaragua. New York, where Aurelio now lives, is home to one of the largest Garifuna communities in the U.S.
Established in 2018, the 2018-2019 season featured three touring programs. These tours were:
- Lift Me Up! Mid-Atlantic Gospel Masters, a roof-raising program showcasing gospel music traditions of the Mid-Atlantic region with commanding, spirit-filled performances that demonstrate the extraordinary depth of talent in American gospel music. Featuring The Legendary Ingramettes and The Northern Kentucky Brotherhood Singers.
- Country Blues and Dance, exploring the roots and connections of shared musical traditions equally popular among rural blacks and whites throughout the Piedmont and Appalachians. Featuring Phil Wiggins Blues House Party with Junious Brickhouse and The Harris Brothers.
- Pickers’ Paradise: From Balkans to Bluegrass, two dazzling, virtuosic string traditions with deep roots in American communities—one rooted in urban/industrial immigrant culture (tamburitza), while the other born in the uplands of the American South (bluegrass)—displayed alongside each other. Featuring Tamburaški Sastav Ponoć and Danny Knicely’s Next Generation.
