Mode of Program Participation
Community Organizing and Educational Programming
Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Crossing Troublesome: Forty Years of Hindman Settlement School’s Appalachian Family Folk Week
Session Abstract or Summary
In 2017, Hindman Settlement School will celebrate 40 years of hosting their Family Folk Week. Family Folk Week has been a yearly residential event held to teach and promote Appalachian cultural heritage including music, dance, craft, and storytelling, rooted in Knott County in Eastern Kentucky. It has become a community of its own: a strong core group of attendees have attended consistently for years and decades; people from around the country have traveled for an immersive cultural experience; folk masters like Jean Ritchie and Lee Sexton have drawn eager students to pass on oral traditions.
This panel seeks to pull out lessons from the experiences of participants and instructors who have been shaped by, and helped shape, Hindman’s Family Folk Week. These participant observations, critiques, reflections, and anecdotes of experiences and impacts aim to answer the questions: How has Family Folk Week shaped participants understanding of and connection to Appalachian culture? What lessons does attention to tradition offer our current moment? Despite the hyper local focus of most of Hindman Settlement School’s work, this event has catered to people largely from outside of the county and region – has it expanded the definition and claim to Appalachian culture? How have insider and outsider access and roles shaped or been shaped by events like this? What are the lasting impacts of 40 years of Folk Week?
Presentation #1 Title
Meeting Ground: Hindman Settlement School and a Mixing of Cultures
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
The relationship of culture, people, and place celebrated by this week are nurtured in a special setting at the Forks of Troublesome where insider and outsider have mixed freely during the Settlement School’s history. The Settlement School has cherished the local culture and integrated it into the life and curriculum of the school. Even as outsiders came to the region to contribute their perspectives on culture, they came to value aspects of local tradition and culture. As the forks of Troublesome mingled different streams, so the local and settlement school cultures mingled in a fluorescence of culture leading to a writing renaissance, the spread of the dulcimer, the nurturing of a ballad tradition, and the continuation of songs, dances, and string music. This mixture of cultures has continued through the revitalizing effect of Family Folk Week that draws participants from across the country to experience traditional Appalachian culture in the living context of Appalachian culture. Music that springs directly from the soil has the most power to affect us, and the stream of culture flowing from the font of Troublesome Creek is a powerful manifestation of Appalachian traditional music and craft.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Ron is a professor of music at the University of Kentucky where he also serves as Director of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music. He is coordinator of the Division of Musicology and Ethnomusicology and is a former Director of Appalachian Studies at UK.
Ron is also a musician, beginning fiddle forty years ago in Rockbridge County, Virginia. He performed with the Red State Ramblers on U.S. State Department sponsored travels to Kyrgyzstan, China, Ecuador, and Italy. He is a founding member of the Appalachian Association of Sacred Harp Singers with whom he sang on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio program. Ron has been associated with the Hindman Settlement School's Family Folk Week since 1981, serving as a fiddle and shape note singing instructor.
Presentation #2 Title
Growing Up On, and Returning to, The Forks of the Troublesome
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Folk Week was always a "coming home" for Emeran, especially during parts of her life that took her away from Kentucky. Returning to the Forks of the Troublesome Creek taught Emeran how to appreciate and understand the many treasures that Appalachia has to offer. However, only recently in life did she start to put these pieces together. Appalachia gave Emeran so much as a child and young adult, and as a result she feels a responsibility to give back to it.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Emeran Irby is a Masters Candidate in Food Studies at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. The focus of her research is on Appalachian Gender Studies, using food preservation as a way of understanding larger themes of identity, community, and social capital. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and attended Family Folk Week for 15 years.
Presentation #3 Title
Hindman Settlement School and the place of Traditional Arts in Modern Culture
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Rich has been a longtime instructor and participant in Family Folk Week. He’s observed the ways that it has changed over time, and how cultural event like this have evolved in the Settlement School’s broader work. The relationships between Hindman Settlement School and other institutions like Appalshop and The Hindman Appalachian Artisan Center have grown, and teaching programs in the schools have evolved to emphasize many of the traditions highlighted at Folk Week. A 40 year anniversary seems an appropriate time to examine the place of traditional music and arts in modern culture.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Rich Kirby has been soaked in mountain music for longer than he cares to mention, learning, performing, collecting, recording and teaching. He joined the staff of Family Folk Week in 1980 and has been there most years since. He recently retired after 24 years at Appalshop’s community radio station WMMT.
Presentation #4 Title
Home Away from Home: Adopted Community and a Sense of Place
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
For Dana, Hindman Settlement School and Appalachian Family Folk Week have provided a sense of place for her throughout her life. As part of a military family and someone who has spent a lifetime traveling, Dana has come to think sincerely of Hindman as home. Her identity as an Appalachian writer has evolved through this relationship with Hindman and years spent as a participant in Folk Week.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Dana Wildsmith is the author of five books of poetry, an environmental memoir and a novel, Jumping. She is an English Literacy instructor at Lanier Technical College in north Georgia.
Presentation #5 Title
N/A - convener
Presentation #5 Abstract or Summary
N/A - convener
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #5
Jacob Mack-Boll serves as Program Director for the Hindman Settlement School in Hindman, Kentucky. There he oversees folk arts and cultural heritage programming, which has expanded to include local foods and foodways. Jacob holds a BA in Peacebuilding and Development from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Meeting Ground: Hindman Settlement School and a Mixing of Cultures
The relationship of culture, people, and place celebrated by this week are nurtured in a special setting at the Forks of Troublesome where insider and outsider have mixed freely during the Settlement School’s history. The Settlement School has cherished the local culture and integrated it into the life and curriculum of the school. Even as outsiders came to the region to contribute their perspectives on culture, they came to value aspects of local tradition and culture. As the forks of Troublesome mingled different streams, so the local and settlement school cultures mingled in a fluorescence of culture leading to a writing renaissance, the spread of the dulcimer, the nurturing of a ballad tradition, and the continuation of songs, dances, and string music. This mixture of cultures has continued through the revitalizing effect of Family Folk Week that draws participants from across the country to experience traditional Appalachian culture in the living context of Appalachian culture. Music that springs directly from the soil has the most power to affect us, and the stream of culture flowing from the font of Troublesome Creek is a powerful manifestation of Appalachian traditional music and craft.
