Baltimore County, MD smARTS, 6 Jun 2018

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From YouTube: Maryland Traditions

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An interview with Chad Buterbaugh about Maryland Traditions

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( ♪♪♪ ).

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Folk life is made up of living cultural traditions.

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Music, dance, craft and plays can all play a part.

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Chad buterbaugh is a folklorist who heads up the maryland traditions program at the maryland state. Arts. Council.-.

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And I'd like to welcome you to smarts.. Thank you so much., it's great to be here. buterbaugh sounds like a pretty folksy name.

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( laughter ), it has maybe some german roots there?.

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There's definitely some german roots coming from western pennsylvania.

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okay., but you're here in maryland, now.

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Okay. so let's talk a little bit about again, what folk life.

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I gave a quick little summary of it, but I want to talk to an expert on it.

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How would you describe,, if you're talking about folk, life,.

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How would you describe it?.

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Well,, the first thing I would say is that the true experts are in the field.

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They're the people who are doing the dances, singing the songs,, making the foods, practicing the customs and I'm just an amplifier.

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That's what folklorists do. I find them, and I try to help them out., make them more visible..

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Some of the things you mentioned in your intro, like food, craft, et cetera.,.

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That's it., that's folk, life.

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living cultural traditions that are still being practiced in certain communities.

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People tend not to go to school, to learn these things..

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They learn them by word of mouth or by example, and it's just common practice in certain cultural communities.

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Yeah. pretty fascinating actually.

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okay.. So let's talk a little bit about maryland, some maryland folk life, traditions.

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I don't know if you can even focus on down to baltimore county.

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Are there any or is that all kind of mixed together?.

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Well,, let's start in the chesapeake bay., how about that?.

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Before the european arrival,, this was all piscataway country.

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Especially southern maryland.

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So we still have piscataway people and many indigenous people in maryland.

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Who are still practicing traditional expressions and ways of living.

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There are the nause-waiwash people,, the accohannock people,.

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The list could go on. when the europeans arrived,, we started getting our maritime culture.

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Growing and growing over the generations, and so we still have watermen working the water, oystermen, crabbers.

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And of course, maryland is also in the last, maybe what?.

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100 or 200 years become home to people from a lot of other places.

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Through immigration., whether it's the older waves from europe...

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Because of the harbor... exactly. exactly.

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Any water town is going to have a great concentration of people from other cultures.

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Do you have to go back hundreds and hundreds of years, or can you go back, for example, to sparrow's point steel mill?

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that obviously had a great effect on the area in old, baltimore county.

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Yeah. absolutely. so you're exactly right.

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Folk life is about the past, but it's really about stuff. That's still happening today.

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And a few years ago,, some of our colleagues worked with.

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The sparrow's point community, where the steel mill.

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Had been shuttered in 2012 and there were a lot of people there.

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Who still considered sparrow's point home but with the massive economic upheaval,.

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Weren't able to go home in a certain sense.

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So maryland traditions partnered with umbc to do an oral history project.

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Which was archived and filmed and actually turned into a documentary.

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Called mill stories that was done by my former colleague michelle stefano.

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And umbc producer, bill shewbridge.

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it's online and it just recounts people's memories of the home.

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That was no longer available to them in the way that they grew up. With.

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So maybe you're kind of answering my next question, but why do you think it's so important to keep these folk life traditions alive.

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And make them part of things that people were doing 200 years ago.

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And as you said,, they carry on.. Maybe we re not aware of it exactly, but why is it so important?.

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Well, we have in maryland a great arts community all around.

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And it's wonderful to have master ballet dancers.

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And master violinists in the classical tradition.

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But at the same time, with all that,.

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Are all of these small communities around the state.

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Where people are practicing on a much more intimate level.

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The traditions that truly mean something to them.

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I often say that a community might be just a brick wall.

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You could have lots of people in the community and it's like a brick wall and they hold together.

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But if you push a dry, brick wall, it s going to fall. Over.

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folk life is almost like the mortar in between the bricks.

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It's the thing that allows people to mark their own community.

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And identify themselves as themselves.

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And it makes the community much, much stronger to share a certain form of song, dance, et cetera.

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So I know you're working hard with the maryland state arts council.

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To help keep these traditions alive., can you give me some specific examples of what the council's efforts are in that light?.

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Well, we give regular grants through maryland traditions..

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One of them is an apprenticeship award where we pair two artists, together,.

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A master and an apprentice to ensure that some form of folk life.

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Is carried on into the future.

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folk life project, grants, operational grants for organizations that are doing folk life activities.

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And our big event, which is coming up in september,.

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Is the national folk festival where...

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Carolyn:, when you say national,, you mean that's everyone., so it's being hosted here in maryland?.

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Correct. correct. wow. chad: yeah.. It's going to be hosted in salisbury between 2018 and 2020.

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And it's going to be several stages of traditional arts performance.

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From around the country., one of those stages is going to be produced by maryland traditions and focus on maryland, folk life., oh,, terrific.

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You can't give us a little sneak preview of one thing that we might see from the maryland folk life aspect?.

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At the top of my head is going to be a duck. Decoy, carving.

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And this is a tradition that is arguably.

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It arguably has its roots on the lower eastern shore of maryland.

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You can find it in louisiana, around the great lakes as well.

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carolyn:. We claim it here in maryland.

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There is just such an incredibly strong historical precedent for this particular art form here.. This sounds fascinating.

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So if people want to find out more about all the work that you re doing at maryland, state arts council also about the national folk festival,. They can go online? that s right. and find that?.

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Chad buterbaugh, great to meet you, and I wish we had a whole half hour.

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To talk about all the work, you're doing., it's fascinating. thank you.

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Thanks for having me.

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And I'm carolyn black-sotir.: this is smarts, the baltimore county arts and culture show.