'I don't want to develop a bag of tricks that I keep reaching into and repeating myself.''When you act every day, you start repeating yourself and that's a trap.'

'You cannot show that you give out your country's secrets to a terrorist just because you are in love.'

'I have to pinch myself to believe that 10 years have just gone by.'

'After Gully Boy, many interesting projects started coming my way.''But things really changed with the Filmfare. Now, people notice me.''It's a good space, where you don't have to tell people who you are.'

'The past two years have been dramatic, rather then traumatic.''I had bigger challenges that I have ever faced.'

'The day I am bored with acting, I will shift to something.'

Kamariya Hila Rahi Hai notched up 12 million views in two days!

'When it comes to work, he forgets his sleep, his food, everything.''He is too involved in the process and that gives him strength.'

'Instead of getting rehabilitated in Bollywood, I have forced into legal hassles while everyone else watches the drama.'

'Nobody can put back and seal what the movement has unleashed -- conversation, awareness and support.'

'This is not like a one quarter hit; it will take time.'

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

'With Malang, I knew I had a chance to give the audience a new version of myself which they hadn't seen before.'

'What I'm really worried about is that the day this lockdown ends, we will all rush to work and we'll kill the lovely environment we are seeing now.'

'Everyone's going to come out on few kilos (heavier).'

'Fire and Water are the two opposing elements.''One can destroy the other.''But if they come together and create steam, the force generated can run the motor of the world.'

'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.'

'I will not take anything for granted now.'

'A very big film director had said yes to me for two-three films.''When daddy got to know I am going to be opposite the main guy, he got cold feet.''They don't want their investments to get sabotaged by somebody like me who can overshine their son.'

'The entertainment industry is on the verge of a big, big, change over the next few months and years.'

'Hard work and talent finds its way even through the darkest tunnel.'

'If you are a performer, it's easier to sustain.''The day you think you are a star, it becomes difficult.'

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!

The American Folklife Center Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon on Women Fieldworkers

Primary Place: American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Saturday, February 8, 2020
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM EST

Join the American Folklife Center (AFC) on Saturday, February 8 for an edit-a-thon to expand the online presence of women who documented the world. This event is part of the AFC’s multi-year initiative to highlight, explore, and celebrate the contributions of women as ethnographic fieldworkers, and to call attention to the role of women in establishing many of the foundational collections that now enrich the AFC archive and ethnographic archives throughout the world.

During the edit-a-thon, we plan to add and/or expand entries for 25-30 women, both historical and contemporary, who have documented traditional culture. We will focus on collections in the AFC archive. The list of featured fieldworkers whose entries are to be edited will be posted in the near future. Activities will be centered at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, but off-site participation is encouraged. The event starts with a “How to Edit” session presented by Wikipedia Foundation staff. They will be joined by AFC staff, who will assist on-site and off-site researchers and provide archival materials

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

Register for the event at the link!

African American Dollmaking and Puppetry: Renegotiating Identity, Restoring Community
Various speakers and artists, moderated by Camilla Bryce-Laporte

February 18, 2020, 11:30am-2:00pm
119 First Floor
Thomas Jefferson Building

African American artisans utilize ancient skills and innovative technologies to create dolls and puppets that are both whimsical and starkly serious. Their creations — incorporating clay, textiles, wood, glass, and found objects — embrace the somber reality of African American experiences and optimism for a boundless future. Working alone and in communities these artisans create dolls and puppets that articulate Black beauty, strength, style, spirituality, and truth. Their works, embodying older traditions and innovative vocabularies for storytelling, are designed to amuse, educate, and heal. Dolls of each of 8 makers will be displayed on tables from 11:30-12:00 pm and 1:30 pm-2:00 pm.

Folklorist Camila Bryce-Laporte will present six makers as they discuss their work and the stories behind that work. This will be followed with a question and answer session from 12 noon to 1:30 pm.

This program may deal with sensitive subjects and is aimed at adults rather than children.

Some of the dolls will be for sale through the auspices of the Library of Congress sales shop.

Click here for more information.

There is one big message from the recent by-elections that comes ringing in from Bihar. It has tactical implications for the politics that will unfold in the run-up to 2019: hypothetically, if there are any plans afoot to “finish off” another politician (perhaps someone from a neighbouring state) by sending her or him to jail or encircling her or him in corruption and income tax cases, it will only be counter-productive and may end up evoking sympathy for that individual.

On the Neta app, which describes itself as “Leaders ka report card”, users can also share their opinion in the form of video reviews and comments, tag their MLA and conduct polls, with the most active users being highlighted in a separate section called ‘star citizens’

When conditions are warm and moist, such as those near a sweating body, the fabric allows heat to pass through. When conditions become cooler and drier, the fabric reduces the heat that escapes, researchers said.

Barker Library - TA440.N68 2013

Barker Library - TA439.C366 2012

Barker Library - TA439.E36 2013

Barker Library - TA440.N86 2011