Florida Folklife Program

05/21/2026

Invited Artist: Billy Burbank III (2014 Heritage Award winner)
This third generation net-maker began making nets with his father and grandfather at age nine, learning by observation, custom and practice. In 1972, he joined the family business, Burbank Trawl Makers, Inc., which his grandfather founded in 1915. His 1974 net design, the "Mongoose," drastically improved on the standard net that was used by most shrimp fishermen at the time. Consequently, Mr. Burbank was approached by NOAA and the Sea Grant programs of both Florida and Georgia to create a device that would protect turtles from being caught in shrimp trawls. In 2000, he received the NOAA Environmental Hero Award for his success at designing a humane and effective “turtle exclusion device” for the shrimp fishing industry.

05/20/2026

Belén Alverio (Florida Folk Heritage Award winner, 2024) is a master lacemaker in the intricate art of Puerto Rican Mundillo bobbin lace. Using a specially made Mundillo box, Belén makes lace by twisting and crossing thread with numerous bobbins. When Belén and her husband moved to Orlando, she founded Las Damas Del Mundillo Orlando, who has presented with Belen at the Folklife Stage three times. Various members of Las Damas will be with Belen in the Craft Square, and you can see Belen making lace in the Fiber Arts Cabin.

This year, the cabins of the Craft Square are host to alums from the Folklife Stage. Come down to the Fiber Arts Cabin, the Pottery Cabin, and the Blacksmith Forge to see three of Florida’s great traditional artists practicing their crafts all festival weekend.

05/20/2026

Be sure to stop by and see archivists Adam Watson and Chelsea Joslin, who assist patrons with research requests at the State Archives of Florida. In addition, they present a sampling of Florida Folklife records. These include film footage clips from previous Florida Folk Festivals and segments from documentaries created by Florida folklorists, as well as photographs and music selections from the Florida Folklife Collection that are held by the State Archives and accessible on FloridaMemory.com.

05/19/2026

Invited Artist: Liliane Nérette Louis (2006 Heritage Award winner)
Liliane grew up in a large family in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. When she was a child, her mother used to sit down with the children in the evenings and tell stories, or kont, in Haitian Creole. As she grew older, Louis herself began to tell the stories to her seven younger siblings and then later to her own four children. She begins all her engaging stories with a traditional formula: “Kric, krak.”

Louis left Haiti for New York in 1964 and eventually settled in Miami in 1977. Since the 1980s, she regularly performs Haitian folk tales at festivals, schools, and other events. She has been honored as master artist in the Apprenticeship Program more than anyone in Florida Folklife Program history.

05/18/2026

Invited Artists: Harmonic Motion
Made up of Myriam Eli (2023 Heritage Award winner) and Joe Zeytoonian (2000 Heritage Award winner), Harmonic Motion is a South Florida-based musical non-profit who performs and educates on the music, dance, and culture of the Near East. The two met in New York City in the Middle Eastern music scene before eventually moving to South Florida, where they founded Harmonic Motion. They are alums of the Folklife Program’s Apprenticeship Program (where Myriam taught dance to Corrina Finch) and were Florida Folklife Artists-In-Residence in 2023.

05/17/2026

Invited Artist: Marisol Blanco (2024 Heritage Award winner)
Sikan Afro Cuban Dance Project is a dance company, led by Marisol Blanco, that performs traditional Afro Cuban dance throughout Florida and the United States. The group aims to both entertain and educate by giving audiences “a panoramic vision about the Cuban heritage.”

05/16/2026

The Florida Folklife Apprenticeship Program supports the preservation of folklife and traditional arts through one-on-one apprenticeships. At the end of the apprenticeship term, the master artists and apprenticeships take to the folklife stage to demonstrate the finished product.

Master artist Cecilia Bohorquez has traveled the world studying voice and performing classical music. Originally from a village in the Andes, she came to California to study voice. In California, she joined the Peruvian ensemble Inca, where she was the principal vocalist and Charango player.

Apprentice Liliana Velasquez grew up on the coast in Lima, speaking Spanish and English as well as singing in choirs and musicals. After moving to South Florida, she met Cecilia and began taking lessons in Huayño music. You can see Cecilia and Liliana performing these indigenous songs from the mountains at the Folklife Stage this year.

Learn more about the apprenticeship program here: https://dos.fl.gov/cultural/programs/florida-folklife-program/apprenticeship-program/

05/15/2026

Suwannee River Fife & Drum is a Florida-based living history music ensemble devoted to preserving and sharing the soundscape of early America through traditional fife-and-drum performance. Drawing on repertoire associated with the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and later patriotic and popular traditions, they bring the music of America’s past to life through historically informed performance and period dress.

This performance will be on the America 250 Stage, which celebrates two and a half centuries of American culture, heritage, and traditions. Facilitated by the Major John Leroy Haynes Florida Veterans’ History Program, the stage also honors the service of Florida’s veterans throughout the nation’s history.

05/15/2026

It is our last Folk Festival Friday for the year!

Next week, head on to White Springs for the 74th Florida Folk Festival where Florida Folklife will be hosting the Folklife Stage.

For this week's video, we have Paddy League singing the traditional Kalymnian song "Mero Merose" at the end of 2025's Florida Folk Festival. Traditionally sung at the end of Kalymnian festivities, this song is used in Tarpon Springs to this day and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours. That's the end of our 2025 videos, see you at the 2026 Florida Folk Festival!

Panayotis "Paddy" League sings a shortened version of "Mera Merose" at the 2025 Florida Folk Festival.Videography: Zach Moreau and Julian DuncanEditing: Dom ...

05/15/2026

Invited Guest Mike Berg (2006 Heritage Award winner)
Berg comes from five generations of duck decoy carvers. His maternal grandfather and great uncle worked as tool-and-die makers in Michigan, but during the Depression, they supported their families by carving decoys for professional hunters and hunting clubs. Berg creates utilitarian decoys primarily from cork and basswood. Although few contemporary carvers use cork, he prefers to use the traditional materials of his forebears. Like them, he also chooses simple tools: carving knives, a plane, files, and rasps.