'Girish Karnad has left behind a lot of wonderful plays. We must continue to do his work. That's the way to keep his memory alive,' says Lillete

'I have a goal that one day, before audiences walk into a theatre, they will think that it's a Taapsee Pannu film and so, it will be worth their time and money.'

'Itna passionately issine mujhse pyaar nahi kiya.'

'As a society, why are we not talking about the one thing because of which we are born today?'

'Comedy comes naturally to me.'

'So many things opened up for me after I did the show.'

'It was fun trying to regulate ourselves and keep it in the family zone and yet, be tongue-in-cheek.'

'I work a lot because I am greedy for good scripts. I have worked really hard to reach this level, where I can say yes to a good script and it will happen.'

Mrunal Thakur is just three films old in Bollywood and each one has been radically different from the other.

Vidya Balan's candid confession.

'People will be entertained by the Singhams and the Simmbas but they will still not respect cops. Batla House is an opportunity for us to show the true side of policemen and their sacrifices.'

'It's up to the audience to decide if I am the lead or not. I want to stay away from these conversations because it demotivates the actors, when they get stuck in this game of lead, second lead or supporting cast.'

'It got boring after a point.'

'But it's not something I am interested in.'

'I did not have a quintessential debut even though my father is a well known actor in the industry. That's why I never felt like an industry kid.'

'My director has put the ugliest face of a crime on screen.'

'I don't watch my films more than once, otherwise I will fall in love with myself.'

'... and committed.''Priyanka had so much happening in her personal life...''Once we started, Priyanka rose to it.'

'I had the luxury of focusing on doing quality cinema. If that did not work out, I will still have other work. I can take that risk.'

'If a horror movie does well at the box office, it doesn't mean people like to scared these days. People might like to get scared on one Friday, fall in love on other, and laugh on the next.'

'But you have to keep in mind the entertainment value. It can't be preachy.'

'If you want people to get a social message, it is important to package it with humour.'

'You can be fat, you can be thin, you can be fair, or not, you are whatever you are.''It is about being happy about yourself.'

'Everybody had told me that I was the next big thing in Bollywood because my face and body structure was like a superstar. But when it didn't happened, I learned a lot of important things in life.'

'I would get very pampered on the sets so my grandpa used to get very scared about that.''He would think I would feel great from inside and my life would get messed up.'

'If everybody knows your name, that's success. Isn't that what society tells us? I experienced all that at a very young age. So how come I wasn't happy?' Lisa Ray wonders.

'Dabangg 3 has fallen in place. Even the fourth one has fallen in place.''This happens only for films like Rocky or Rambo.'

'Adi Sir told me when he watched Gully Boy, he felt I was hero material.'

'I don't like watching myself. I find my voice very irritating,' Disha Patani tells us.

'Thappad would have run even longer and better had the coronavirus not been there.'

'That's how you keep yourself alive and young.'

'It is very difficult for anybody to say no to the fame and fancies that come along.''But I was courageous and had the strength to say no.'

'Count your blessings, feel gratitude for the medical and essential services providers and police forces who are staking their lives to fight this invisible enemy.'

Please Join us for an American Folklife Center Summer Music Jam: Klezmer led by Howard Ungar and Seth Kibel

September 12, 2019, 7:00 to 9:00 pm 
Veterans History Project Information & Welcome Center (LJ-G51) 
Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress

The American Folklife Center's series of informal jams to celebrate our living folk traditions, and to bring to life the collections from our vast ethnographic archive continues in 2019. This jam will be led by Howard Ungar and Seth Kibel. So grab your violin, clarinet, trumpet, or other instruments, and come on over to the Library of Congress for the Klezmer Jam.

Seth Kibel is the leader, clarinetist, and composer for The Alexandria Kleztet, an innovative award-winning klezmer band he founded in the Baltimore/Washington area. The band has released four albums that all recieved the Washington Area Music Award for best album upon their release. In addition to his activities with The Kleztet, Seth has fronted a variety of swing and jazz groups, including Bay Jazz Project.

Klezmer trumpeter Howard Ungar founded the DC Klezmer Workshop. Howard has been playing klezmer trumpet since he attended his first KlezKamp in 1999 and has attended many KlezKamp, Yiddish New York, and KlezKanada festivals. He is a founding member of the DC based klezmer band Mrs. Toretsky’s Nightmare, who have played at numerous weddings, bar-mitvahs, and holiday events. You can also hear him playing trumpet with the DC based Machaya Klezmer Band at the Washington Folk Festival and other venues around town. 

This event is co-sponsored by the DC Klezmer Workshop

Request ADA accommodations five days in advance at 202-707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

Find more information at this link!

Please us for our next Homegrown Concert:

Jones Benally Family Dancers
Navajo (Diné) traditional dance from Arizona
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2019, 12:00 PM
Coolidge Auditorium, Ground Floor
Thomas Jefferson Building
The Library of Congress

World Champion hoop dancer and traditional healer Jones Benally, his daughter Jeneda, his son Clayson, and his three young grandchildren form the Jones Benally Family Dancers. Navajo dance is a sacred tradition encompassing a wide variety of forms, all of which aim to heal the body, mind, or spirit. When presented outside the Navajo community, these dances are modified for public viewing, but they retain their deep capacity to move hearts and minds. The family sings, chants, plays traditional rhythm instruments, and performs a repertoire of over 20 dances, including traditional forms such as basket dance, eagle dance, feather dance, and corn grinding. They are particularly well known for the hoop dance, in which they evoke traditional figures and shapes using five, nine, a dozen, or many more hoops.

Jones Benally is a respected elder of the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona. His skill as a hoop dancer has won him worldwide acclaim and multiple world champion titles as well as the first Heard Museum Hoop Dance Legacy Award. Jones was featured as a singer in the 1993 film Geronimo. He works as a traditional healer, and was among the first traditional medical practitioners to be employed by a "Western" medical facility, where he worked for nearly 20 years. Jones Benally is also recognized by the state of Arizona as an Arizona Indian Living Treasure. Jeneda and Clayson Benally have performed with their father for over three decades, and have also made their mark (along with brother Klee) as the Native American Music Award-winning "alter-Native" punk band Blackfire. The siblings' newest project is the duo Sihasin ("hope"). Jones Benally's grandchildren are the next generation to take up the family legacy of Navajo music and dance.

Request ADA accommodations five days in advance at 202-707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

More information is at this link!

Homegrown Concerts from the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress

Les Filles de Illighadad
Tuareg Music and Song from Niger 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019, 12:00 PM, No Tickets Required
Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building

Fatou Seidi Ghali, lead vocalist and guitarist of Les Filles de Illighadad, is one of the only Tuareg female guitarists in Niger. Sneaking away with her older brother's guitar, she taught herself to play. While Fatou's role as the first female Tuareg guitarist is groundbreaking, it is just as interesting for her musical direction. In Tuareg society, woman have traditionally been musicians, but not guitarists. They have been deeply involved with tende, a form of music centered on a drum traditionally made out of a mortar and pestles. Tende rhythms also deeply informed the development of Tuareg guitar music, which is mostly the province of men. In a place where gender norms have created these two divergent musics, Fatou and Les Filles de Illighadad are reasserting the role of tende in Tuareg guitar. In lieu of the djembe or the drum kit, so popular in contemporary Tuareg rock bands, Les Filles de Illighadad incorporate the traditional drum and the pounding calabash, half buried in water. They are thus reclaiming the importance of this forgotten inspiration of Tuareg guitar and asserting the power of women to innovate using the roots of traditional Tuareg music.

Fatou Seidi Ghali, Alamnou Akirwini, Fitimata Ahmadelher, and Abdoulay Madassane Alkika are from Illighadad, a secluded commune in central Niger, far off in the scrubland deserts at the edge of the Sahara. The village is only accessible via a grueling drive through the open desert and there is little infrastructure, no electricity, and no running water. But what the nomadic zone lacks in material wealth it makes up for deep and strong identity and tradition. The surrounding countryside supports hundreds of pastoral families, living with and among their herds, as their families have done for centuries.

Visit the concert page at this link for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

Please join us for a day-long symposium:

Women Documenting the World
Women as Folklorists, Ethnomusicologists & Fieldworkers
Thursday, September 26, 2019 
9:30 am -5:00 pm
Mary Pickford Theater, James Madison Building, Library of Congress

The American Folklife Center launches its multi-year initiative to highlight, explore, and celebrate the contributions of women as ethnographic fieldworkers and scholars with Women Documenting the World, a day-long program of talks, interviews, and discussions on Thursday, September 26. 

The free event, which is open to the public, calls attention to the role of women in establishing many of the foundational collections that enrich the American Folklife Center archive as well as other ethnographic archives throughout the world. It features presentations by contemporary researchers who are currently engaged in both national and international fieldwork, and includes brief presentations by American Folklife Center staff about important fieldwork collections in the American Folklife Center archive that were created by women, and that are too often overlooked.

Request ADA accommodations five days in advance at 202-707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

Find further information at the link!

Barker Library - TA442.5.D33 2012

Barker Library - TA441.B56 2013

Barker Library - TA443.P58 I57 2013

Barker Library - TA440.S87 2013

Barker Library - TA440.H26 2014