Vermont Folklife

06/03/2026

Come experience the Young Tradition Vermont at VT Folklife Instrument Petting Zoo at Rokeby Museum's Sheep and Wool Day this weekend!

Rokeby Museum's Sheep & Wool Day spotlight continues with the return of a community favorite: 's Instrument Petting Zoo! The Instrument Petting Zoo is your chance to try out all manner of traditional and unusual instruments, including fiddles, ukuleles, sarangi, guitars, banjos, mandolins, autoharps, cellos, basses, drums, kazoos, maracas, recorders, thumb pianos, tin whistles, and more!

The Instrument Petting Zoo will be taking over one of our historic outbuildings. Stop by Rokeby Museum this Saturday, 12:00 - 3:00, and give them a try!

05/30/2026

Congratulations to Vermont Humanities for a wonderful VT READS kick off event at The Center for Cartoon Studies with cartoonists Joel Christian Gill, Tillie Walden and Marek Bennett! Excited for Charity and Sylvia!

05/29/2026

Non-Fiction Comics Festival! Want to exhibit? Link in the comments!

05/13/2026

We had a wonderful Young Tradition Festival last weekend! So grateful to all who were involved! 😍

05/08/2026

Come dance tonight! The Young Tradition Festival kicks off with our Community Dance Party—an opportunity for attendees of all ages and abilities to gather, move together to live music, and learn from local dancers. Learn some Bollywood steps or a dance from Nepal; try some circle dances from Quebec or Tibet, and more!

05/05/2026

This weekend! The Young Tradition Festival is back in Burlington this Friday, May 8 & Saturday, May 9. This year features four local dance leaders, musical duo Alex Kehler & Nicholas Williams from Québec, the Tradition Vermont at VT Folklife Touring Group, and l'Ensemble Trad Jeunesse, all performing live in Burlington! Find the full line up here: https://www.vtfolklife.org/young-tradition-festival

05/04/2026

This Wednesday, May 6 from 4-6pm at Capitol Food Court in the Vermont State House—come celebrate the unveiling of a new exhibit showcasing the work of the pilot year of the Vermont Community Fellows Program! Browse the new exhibit and meet the 2025-2026 Fellows from across the state. Free hors d’œvres and live music from Sugar in the Pan!

For over a year this diverse group of Vermonters engaged directly with the people and places that matter most to each of them —to learn, share and enact positive change. Through this exhibit, they present their work to the world.

04/03/2026

PROUD LITTLE STATE is a new comic series from the Center for Research on Vermont, the Vermont Q***r Archives and Vermont Folklife that shares experiences of LGBTQ+ Vermonters past and present!

Want a free copy? Join us for a launch event at the Royall Tyler Theater at UVM from 5-7 on April 7!

Want to learn more? Link to a Seven Days article in the comments!

04/01/2026

We at VT Folklife have been preparing for this day for more than 40 years. Thanks to our generous supporters, we have socked away a good haul of folklore in our archive, and we expect to be pretty flush with folklore for a while.

Need folklore? Give us a call!

https://go.usa.gov/xzJNs The World Folklore Council has made the stunning announcement that there is no more folklore left to document. The council's president, Llewellyn Willwood, released a statement that said in part: "For some time, it's been apparent that every song and story we collect, every recipe and custom, every gesture and artifact, is just a minor variation of something we have collected before. We finally feel it's time to admit: the world is all out of fresh folklore!" Read the rest of the council's statement, and their plans for the future, at the link!

03/26/2026

Tonight (3/26) at Bar Renée (202 Main St., Burlington, VT) from 6-8 join Mary and Andy for a VT Folklife Listening Party featuring audio clips from the VF Archive about...sugaring! Free to attend!

And PIE! There will be PIE! Yes, PIE. Our friends at Bar Renée have crafted a TOP SECRET SEASONAL PIE, and slices will be available for a modest donation to VT Folklife! Stop in early to be sure you don't miss out!

What's a "Listening Party"? It's like a DJ set of the spoken word where people come and listen--together. Mary dug DEEP into our archive for this one, and she's pulled some amazing stuff for your listening pleasure!

Tremendous thanks to our friends at Bar Renée for hosting!

Details in the comments, and we hope to see you there!

Photo by James Blair. Mad River Valley Collection, VT Folklife Archive.