Join Us! Sign Up!

People

Page Links

Staff and Associates

Debora Kodish (Director) is the founder of the Philadelphia Folklore Project. She has directed the organization since its inception in 1987 and has focused on developing projects that support the culture and folk arts of Philadelphia communities since that time. Her work has resulted in numerous exhibitions, public programs and publications, as well as opportunities for local folk artists and grassroots cultural organizations. At the PFP she has conducted field research and edited publications on Cambodian folk opera, African American social dance, Lithuanian folksongs, and other topics, and served as project director and researcher for the PFP's work on African American women tap dancers, which resulted in an exhibition which she curated and a documentary videotape for which she is a co-director. Kodish taught folklore in universities and conducted folklife research in a range of settings before beginning the PFP. She worked in some of the country's first public folklife programs, doing field research in Oregon and Maine for exhibitions and publications in the 1970s. Kodish received her Ph.D. in Folklore from the University of Texas in 1981. Her publications deal with the history of folklife study, early public sector folklife, feminist approaches to folklife and the conventions that folklorists rely on in developing their work; since working at PFP she has focused on issues in public interest folklore. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Policy, and the board of the Folk Arts - Cultural Treasures Charter School. She can be reached at kodish [at] folkloreproject.org.

Selina Morales (Program Associate) coordinates PFP's public programs and our Community Folklife Documentation Workshop. She is a doctoral candidate in folklore at Indiana University, where she completed her M.A., also in folklore. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Oberlin College. She has worked in public folklore at Traditional Arts Indiana and the Mathers Museum, where she curated exhibitions. She can be reached at smorales [at] folkloreproject.org

Ife Nii-Owoo (Graphic Design) runs Ife Designs and Associates, an award-winning design company. She has designed the PFP's publications (including books, videos, calendars and other print media) for more than a decade. She can be reached at ife@ifedesigns.com

Patricia Frahme (Accountant) manages PFP's financial systems.

Judy Smith / Rhizoid manages our website.

Teaching Artists currently include:

  • Kormassa Bobo, Liberian dance
  • Sifu Shu Pui Cheung and Helen Gym, Chinese hung gar kung fu and lion dance
  • Gbahtuo Comgbaye, Liberian storytelling
  • Fatu Gayflor, Liberian song
  • Linda Goss, storyteller
  • Kurt Jung and Qin Qian, Chinese instruments (erhu and yangquin)
  • Shuyuan Li, Beijing Opera
  • Than Nhan Ngo, Vietnamese dan tranh
  • Thavro Phim, Cambodian chayyam
  • Losang Samten, Tibetan sand mandala
  • Zaye Tete, Liberian song
  • Dorothy Wilkie, John Wilkie, Ama Schley, Angela Watson and Ishmael Jackson, West African and Afro-Caribbean dance
  • Chamroeun Yin, Cambodian craft traditions

Board members (2009 - 2010)

Funders

The Philadelphia Folklore Project is supported by the donations of members (people like you who are committed to sustaining diverse and vital community arts) and by a number of generous funders. We are grateful to all of you. Recent funders have included:

  • The National Endowment for the Arts
  • The National Endowment for the Arts - Recovery Act
  • The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
  • The Pennsylvania Humanities Council
  • The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
  • The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development 
  • The Philadelphia Cultural Fund
  • The William Penn Foundation
  • The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage through Dance Advance
  • The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage through the Heritage Philadelphia Program
  • The Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage through the Philadelphia Music Project
  • The Pew Charitable Trusts
  • Artography: Arts in a Changing America, a grant and documentation program of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, funded by the Ford Foundation
  • The Jacob and Malka Goldfarb Foundation
  • The Samuel Fels Fund
  • Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation
  • Henrietta Tower Wurts Foundation
  • The Hilles Foundation
  • The Douty Foundation
  • PNC Arts Alive
  • and our many generous individual donors and members!