National Endowment for the Arts

Basque "rappers" get recognition, here is the note:

16 in Traditional, Folk Arts Get Honors
1 hour, 30 minutes ago

By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - From a Florida designer of diving helmets to four Westerners who write poetry in the Basque language, 16 Americans will share this year's annual awards given by the National Endowment for the Arts to creators in popular and folk traditions.

They will share 11 National Heritage Fellowships worth $20,000 each.

The Basque poets are Jesus Arriada and Johnny Curutchet of the San Francisco area; Martin Goicoechea of Rock Springs, Wyo.; and Jesus Goni of Reno, Nev. They perform regularly for the 60,000 American descendants of Basques. Immigrants from mountainous northern Spain and southern France, the Basques were drawn to the West first by the California Gold Rush and came later as shepherds.

At Basque gatherings, the performers improvise songs in traditional patterns on subjects picked in advance, engaging in a kind of musical joust against one another. The NEA says the unusual Basque language is one of the world's few with an increasing number of speakers.

For achievement in the traditional arts field as a whole, Carmencristina Moreno of Fresno, Calif., was singled out to receive the year's Bess Lomax Hawes Award. She is an administrator as well as a singer, composer and teacher.

Nicholas Toth of Tarpon Springs, Fla., carries on a family tradition of designing helmets for divers who harvest natural sponges, a local commercial specialty. His one-piece helmets, made of spun copper have been sought by collectors and museums for their beauty.

Agnes Kenmille, who has spent most of her 87 years on Montana's Flathead Indian Reservation, won the award for her work with beads and the regalia of her people. New York's Rosa Elena Egipciaco carries on a 500-year-old tradition of making mundillo, the weaving of lace from wooden bobbins.

Other winners include two father-and-son teams: Roberto and Lorenzo Martinez, Hispanic musicians from Albuquerque, N.M.; and Felipe and Joseph Ruak, who perform traditional stick dances from the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific.

Norman Kennedy is a Scottish weaver, singer and storyteller from Marshfield, Vt.

Norma Miller of Las Vegas is a dancer and choreographer who helped create the acrobatic style of the Lindy Hop.

Ron Poast makes the Hardanger fiddle, Norway's national folk instrument, in Black Earth, Wis.

Monoochehr Sadeghi was born in Tehran, Iran, and performed on the santur, a stringed instrument played with hammers, in the orchestra that played for the late Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Sadeghi later emigrated to Los Angeles, an area now home to half a million Iranian-Americans.

I met Martin Goicochea down in San Francisco last february. Congratulations to him and all the other recipients of this award.

.... ... .