Folk & Traditional Arts Program

Purpose & Services

The Iowa Arts Council's Folklife Program assists in documenting, preserving, and promoting the living traditional culture of all our state’s residents.

We all have folklife—the traditions that make us who we are in our communities. Folklife is a living process that changes as people change, as our environment changes, and as newcomers influence more established groups and vice versa.

Folklife or traditional art encompasses the everyday knowledge, art, and lore that are passed from one person to another through imitation or word-of-mouth. Learned primarily through ethnic, religious, occupational, or family associations rather than through formal training, folklife genres include a diversity of forms:

from the manual signals used by factory workers to children's jump rope rhymes, from fish tales to sales pitches, from polka music to Norwegian wood carving, and from coming-of-age rituals to the photocopy jokes passed around offices.

By reflecting a group's way of looking at the world, traditional forms as well as occupational skills and knowledge all serve to identify and symbolize individuals and their communities.

folk art . . . music. . . dance. . . crafts. . . narratives (folk history, legends, tall tales, or jokes) . . .architecture. . . beliefs . . . rituals. . . celebrations. . . foods . . . games

Folklife in Iowa is incredibly varied—

from Meskwaki drumming, finger weaving, bead working and powwows to Norwegian hardanger embroidery, fiddling and lutefisk;

from African-American blues, rap, gospel music, soul food and preaching styles to Danish rödkal (red cabbage), folk dancing and old time music;

from Nuer hair braiding, drumming and dancing to Tai Dam and Lao weaving, dancing, music and phó (beef noodle and vegetable soup);

from farm fresh cinnamon rolls, Amish quilts and Amana wines to Bosnian kilim (rug) weaving and pita (a strudel-like dish),

from Somali sambusas (small, fried meat and vegetable pies) to Iraqi oud (Arabic lute) making and playing...

Cultural Groups, such as...

• Afghanis
• African Americans
• American Indians
• Asian Indians
• Bosnians
• Czechs
• Danes
• Dutch
• English
• French
• Germans
• Iraqis
• Irish
• Latinos (Colombians, Cubans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Peruvians, Salvadorans)
• Lebanese
• Norwegians
• Pakistanis
• Russians
• Scottish
• Scots-Irish
• Somalis
• Southeast Asians (Tai Dam, Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodians, Hmong)
• Sudanese (Nuer, Shilluk, Maban, Dinka)

And Religious Groups, such as…

• Amana Germans
• Amish
• Baptists
• Buddhists
• Catholics
• Congregationalists
• Episcopalians
• Greek Orthodox
• Hindus
• Jews
• Lutherans
• Mennonites
• Methodists
• Muslims
• Presbyterians
• Quakers
• Unitarians

Administration and Advisory Committee

The Iowa Arts Council administers Folklife with the advice of an advisory committee made up of experts in the field of folklore, community scholars, traditional artists, and members of different cultural groups. The committee reviews project proposals and members are consulted on an individual basis. Please feel free to suggest projects to the Iowa Folklife Coordinator.