2013 Festival Acadiens et Creole
Friday night, October 11, 2013
How do you explain an event like Festival Acadiens et Creole? To people who live in and around Lafayette, Louisiana it’s just another chance to listen to music, and, if they feel like it, to dance. Music and dance, oxygen and carbon dioxide, inseparable paired combinations.
What separates Lafayette from other cities is the volume of outdoor music. Let’s see. In Lafayette there are the Bach Lunches at noon on Friday, the four day Festival International de Louisiane in April, and the three day Festival Acadiens et Creole in October. Mardi Gras is celebrated here and in every little town within fifty miles of Lafayette.
There are over 400 (no typo) festivals celebrated a year in Louisiana.These people are imaginative. They find ways to celebrate everything that grows or lives here.
Rice? There’s the International Rice Festival in Crowley. Strawberries? The Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula. Tomatoes? The Tomato Festival in Chalmette. Catfish? Actually two of them - Franklin Parish Catfish Festival in Winnsboro and the Catfish Festival in Washington, LA. Pride in Cajun heritage? The Giant Omelette Festival in Abbeville. Crawfish? The Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival. You get the idea.
http://www.louisianatravel.com/festivals
Festival Acadiens et Creole is a genuflection to the two biggest stars in the southwest galaxy of music: Cajun and Creole music.
“This festival is special. It’s one of the most important festivals because it shines a light on our culture. It’s not just Cajun music, it’s Louisiana music,” says Steve Riley, leader of Steve Riley and The Mamou Playboys. His band travels has been traveling the world, spreading the gospel of Louisiana music for 25 years.
There is no other festival on earth that spawns such eclectic, authentic, rootsy, music that honors it's past but is not anchored to it. Just look at the names of the musicians on the program.
“Go to to dance halls and you see 20-year-olds dancing with 70-year-olds,” Riley says. “Look in the crowd, it's happening right here, right now. You can go to the Blue Moon Saloon on a Wednesday night an hear a jam session put on by a bunch of 21-year-old kids just learning how to perform. The music is alive, keeps reinventing itself. We’ve been playing together for 25 years, heck some marriages don't last that long."(probably true of the members of the band on stage, too).
I've lost track of the times I've fallen in love during an especially fine dance. A friend of mine calls them "four minute affairs." Judging by the smiles on the dancer's faces, there are plenty of affairs going on right now.
Dance floor? Heck, no. These people are dancing on what unti this morning was an uneven pach of grass. It's turning a little muddy thanks to last night' s rain. Last year, some dancers wore bandanas over their faces to keep from inhaling dust kicked up by hundreds of pairs of feet. A little mud? No one complains.
Parents, sometimes grandparents, take kids around the dance floor in their arms, on their shoulders, even have kids stand on their shoes and move to the beat with them. Are they enjoying themselves? Check the smile on the little girl. Some day, they'll do the same thing with their own kids. In southwest Louiisiana, dancing is a birthright.
Friday afternoon 5:30 PM there is Geno and His French Rockin' Boogie on the main stage at Girard Park kicking off the 39th year of Festival Acadiens et Creole. The sky is blue, the sun is lazing its way toward the horizon, the temperature is in the low 80s, the humidity is low, and spirits are high.
Right now there a couple hundred people happily shaking their booty on the uneven, clumpy, grass-beaten-down-about-to-be-mud-or-dust surface in front of the stage, with another 300 sprawled about in camp chairs or blankets listening to Geno's popular music. Geno has been playing steadily for the past 19 years. It's no wonder most of them can lip-synch or sing-along with his upbeat two steps or lazy waltzes.
Geno and His French Rockin' Boogie have been a huge draw for any dance since 1994. They play zydeco and a smattering of country/western and bluesy styles. Geno's the kickstarter for this year's festival. An honest to goodness Creole cowboy, when he's not performing he's raising horses on his Double D ranch in Duralde, LA.
Photos © by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
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