Sarah Luisa Bryan – Durham, North Carolina
Education
- MA, Folklore (2003), University of North Carolina
- BA, American Studies (1999), George Washington University
Second Language
- Fluent Spanish (spoken and written)
Fellowships
- 2022 Cauthen Fellowship, Alabama Folklife Association, with co-awardee Hal Pugh
- 2019-2020 North Carolina Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Literature
- 2019 William C. and Susan S. Mariner Southern Ceramics Fellowship, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts
- 2016 Archie Green Fellowship from the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.
Publications (please click to see Publications tab)
Professional History
- Executive Director, Association for Cultural Equity
June 2023 – October 2024
New York, New York / Durham, North Carolina
The Association for Cultural Equity has a mission is to stimulate cultural equity through preservation, research, and dissemination of the world’s traditional music and dance, including via the digital archive of the Alan Lomax collection. As Executive Director of ACE, I led the organization in its programming, while directing staff, leading development, and carrying out strategic planning.
- Executive Director, North Carolina Folklife Institute
2017 – 2023 (Executive Director)
2015 – 2016 (Director of Administration)
2007 – 2011 (Program Manager)
2005 – 2006 (Folklife fieldworker and writer)
Durham, North Carolina
My work for the North Carolina Folklife Institute included directing fieldwork among traditional musicians and craftspeople in dozens of North Carolina counties, fundraising and grant-writing, financial and administrative management, and research and writing for a variety of folklore programming and heritage tourism programs across the state.
- Executive Director, Old-Time Music Group
- Editor, Old-Time Herald
Durham, North Carolina
2008 – 2023 (Editor-in-Chief and Executive Director)
2006 – 2008 (Assistant Editor)
As Director of the OTMG and Editor of its publication, I was responsible for planning each issue, directing employees, and overseeing all editorial and financial functions for the quarterly Old-Time Herald, which has been a preeminent publication in the field of traditional Southern music since 1987.
- Consulting Folklorist, Pomeroy Foundation
2021 – 2023
For the Pomeroy Foundation’s Legends & Lore program, I assisted in evaluating applications for historic markers to commemorate the folk traditions of communities nationwide.
2016 – 2019
I served as the Editor of the ARSC Journal, a peer-reviewed journal published twice annually, which covers a wide variety of topics related to recorded sound, including field recording, archival practices, sound restoration, discography, collecting, and copyright.
- Freelance Folklife Researcher and Writer
2011 – present
As an independent folklorist, I offer research and writing services to cultural organizations. My work for such institutions includes folklife fieldwork (identifying and interviewing traditional artists and other heritage bearers), writing based both on my own fieldwork and archival sources, and writing for both general and specialized audiences in a variety of online and print media.
Selected Projects:
Survey of South Carolina’s Tradition Bearers. For the University of South Carolina’s McKissick Museum and the South Carolina Arts Commission, in a project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), I conducted folklife surveys of Allendale, Berkeley, Calhoun, Charleston, Chesterfield, Clarendon, Colleton, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Georgetown, Hampton, Horry, Kershaw, Marion, Marlboro, Sumter, and Williamsburg Counties.
Statewide Heritage Initiative. For the North Carolina Folklife Institute’s NEA- and North Carolina Arts Council-supported initiative, I conducted asset mapping and created cultural resource inventories based upon fieldwork with traditional artists and other tradition-bearers, created extensive reports based on archival research, and worked to establish on-the-ground relationships between cultural organizations and individual artists. Regions covered include Anson, Davidson, Halifax, Harnett, Hoke, Montgomery, Pender, Robeson, Scotland, Stanly, Vance, and Warren Counties, North Carolina.
Blue Ridge National Heritage Area (BRNHA) website. For the website of the BRNHA, a federally-funded heritage tourism agency based in Western North Carolina, I created web content introducing general audiences to the musical traditions of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina.
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