Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} One Generation at a Time Biography of a Cajun and Creole Music Festival by Barry Jean Ancelet. Barry Jean Ancelet (pseudonym Jean Arceneaux ; born 1951) [1] [4] is a Cajun folklorist in French and ethnomusicologist in . He has written several books, and under his pseudonym Jean Arceneaux, including poetry and lyrics to songs. Contents. Early life and education Career Music festivals Teaching Other work Honors and awards Publications As Jean Arceneaux Film See also References Further reading External links. Early life and education. Born in Church Point, in Acadia Parish, Louisiana on 25 June 1951. [1] He graduated from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now named the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) with a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1974. [2] He received a Master of Arts in folklore from Indiana University in 1977. [2] Ancelet obtained a doctorate in 1984 in Études Créoles (anthropology and linguistics) from the Université de Provence, (Aix-Marseille I) in Aix-en-Provence, . [2] Career. Music festivals. Ancelet co-founded and acted as the Director the Tribute to Cajun Music, in 1974 and from 1976 to 1980, [4] which became the annual Festivals Acadiens. He has also served as a Director as well as the President and member of the Executive Board for the Festival de Musique Acadienne/Cajun Music Festival since 1980. [4] Teaching. He has taught at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, starting in 1977, first as the Director of the Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore (from 1977 to 1980), as a Professor of Francophone Studies and Folklore (1977 to 1980), [2] and he was a folklorist at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Center for Louisiana Studies (from 1980 to 1985). [4] Ancelet has served as Chair of University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Department of Modern Languages and as the first Director of the university's Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore — regarded as the largest compilation of media resources pertaining to these two south Louisiana ethnic groups. Other work. Ancelet hosted the Rendez-vous des , a live weekly music radio program on KRVS for more than a decade. Ancelet has served as the Chairman on the Louisiana Folklife Commission from 1984 to 1990. [4] Ancelet is a member of many organizations, including the l'Ordre des francophones d'Amérique, in , ; a fellow of the American Folklore Society; and a fellow of the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Honors and awards. In 2005, Ancelet was named the Willis Granger and Tom Debaillon BORSF Professor of Francophone Studies at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 2008, he won the Américo Paredes Prize by the American Folklore Society. In 2009, he was named Louisiana "Humanist of the Year" by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Publications. Ancelet, Barry (1984). Makers of Cajun Music: Musiciens Cadiens Et Creoles . Elemore Morgan (photography) (1 ed.). University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0292750791 . Ancelet, Barry Jean (1989). Capitaine, Voyage Ton Flag: The Traditional Cajun Country Mardi Gras . Louisiana Life Series, Number 1. Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana. ISBN 978-0940984462 . Ancelet, Barry Jean (1989). Cajun Music: Its Origins and Development . Louisiana Life Series, Number 2. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ISBN 978- 0940984486 . Ancelet, Barry Jean; Edwards, Jay; Pitre, Glen (1991). Cajun Country . Folklife in the South Series. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0878054671 . Ancelet, Barry Jean (1994). Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana . University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0878057092 . Ancelet, Barry Jean; Gould, Philip (2007). One Generation at a Time: Biography of a Cajun and Creole Music Festival . Benny Graeff (contribution), David Simpson (contribution). University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ISBN 978- 1887366809 . Gould, Philip; Hebert, Sandy; Ancelet, Barry Jean (1984). Les Cadiens D'Asteur: Today's Cajuns . Galerie Press Incorporated. ISBN 978-0917541001 . As Jean Arceneaux. Arceneaux, Jean (1994). Je Suis Cadien [ I Am Cajun ] . Merrick, New York: Cross-Cultural Communications. Arceneaux, Jean (1998). Suite du loup . Collection Acadie Tropicale. Moncton, Canada: Éditions Perce-Neige. ISBN 9782896910670 . Arceneaux, Jean (2002). Je Suis Cadien [ I Am Cajun ] . Translated by St. Germain, Sheryl (French ed.). Merrick, New York: Cross-Cultural Communications. ISBN 978- 0893042165 . (published in French) Year Title Type Director(s) Role Notes 1989 I Went to the Dance (J'ai Été Au Bal) documentary narrator, self Film about the history of music in Cajun Southwest Louisiana. 2007 It's in the Blood: Leo Abshire & the Cajun Tradition documentary Cyndi Moran, Eric Scholl self [5] [6] 2011 Mardi Gras: Feast Before Fast documentary Shereen Jerrett self. See also. Related Research Articles. The Cajuns , also known as , are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana. They also live in the Canadian maritimes provinces consisting in part of the descendants of the original Acadian exiles—French-speakers from Acadia ( L'Acadie ) in what are now the Maritimes of Eastern Canada. In Louisiana, Acadian and Cajun are often used as broad cultural terms without reference to actual descent from the deported Acadians. Historically, Louisianians of Acadian descent were also considered to be Louisiana Creoles, although Cajun and Creole are often portrayed as separate identities today. Most Cajuns are of French descent. The Cajuns make up a significant portion of south Louisiana's population and have had an enormous impact on the state's culture. is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Although it is distinct in origin from the Cajun music of Louisiana, the two forms influenced each other, forming a complex of genres native to Louisiana. Acadiana is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that has historically contained much of the state's Francophone population. Many are of Acadian descent and now identify as Cajuns or Louisiana Creoles. Of the 64 parishes that make up the U.S. state of Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment make up this intrastate region. BeauSoleil is a Cajun band from Louisiana, United States. Louisiana Creoles are persons descended from the inhabitants of colonial Louisiana before it became a part of the U.S. during the period of both French and Spanish rule. As an ethnic group, their ancestry is mainly of African American, French American, Spanish American and/or Native American origin. Louisiana Creoles share cultural ties such as the traditional use of the French, Spanish, and Louisiana Creole languages and predominant practice of Catholicism. Elemore Morgan Jr. was an American painter, photographer, and educator. He was recognized in the Southern United States as a leading contemporary landscape artist. He was a professor of art at University of Louisiana at Lafayette, from 1965 until 1998. His paintings of rice farms in Vermilion Parish have been widely exhibited, from Paris to Los Angeles. Carl Anthony Brasseaux is an American historian and educator. He specialized in French Colonial North America, particularly of Louisiana and the Cajun people. He helped to pioneer the field of Cajun history, and his published works on this topic represent the first serious, in-depth examination of the history of the ethnic group. Glenn Russell Conrad was an American historian, professor, and author. He is known for his research of south Louisiana culture, as well as an expert on archival studies, nineteenth-century European history, and the history of colonial Louisiana. He taught at Southern Colorado State and the University of Southwestern Louisiana from 1958 until 1991, and serving as the director of the Center of Louisiana Studies at University of Southern Louisiana from 1973 until 1993. was an American Cajun player. His time in the U.S. Army inspired Abshire to write the crooner song "Service Blues", which the newspaper Daily World reported as "one of his most memorable tearjerkers". After the war, he settled in Basile, Louisiana, where he played regularly at the Avalon Club. He released his best-known record, "Pine Grove Blues", in 1949. Abshire's music became more well-known outside of Louisiana at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Abshire was never able to write so he was unable to sign autographs, resulting in him having to politely decline the requests. Despite thoughts of Abshire being "arrogant or stuck-up" for not signing autographs, he was unable to read and write. However, Abshire was taught how to write his own signature by Barry Jean Ancelet. Despite receiving more income from music than the majority of Cajun musicians, Abshire was not able to entirely depend on that income to live on. Abshire had multiple jobs during his life and his final job was working as the custodian of the town's dump. Abshire's legacy continued after his death in the form of a museum, a book, and a magazine special issue. Dennis (Denus) McGee was one of the earliest recorded Cajun musicians. The is a traditional Mardi Gras event held in many Cajun and Creole communities of French Louisiana on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Courir de Mardi Gras is for "Fat Tuesday Run". This rural Mardi Gras celebration is based on early begging rituals, similar to those still celebrated by mummers, wassailers, and celebrants of Halloween. As Mardi Gras is the celebration of the final day before Lent, celebrants drink and eat heavily, dressing in specialized costumes, ostensibly to protect their identities. In Acadiana, popular practices include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, drinking alcohol, begging, trail riding, feasting, and whipping. Mardi Gras is one of the few occasions when people are allowed to publicly wear masks in Louisiana. Dance for a Chicken: The Cajun Mardi Gras , a documentary by filmmaker Pat Mire, provides great insight into the history and evolution of this cultural tradition. In popular culture, two HBO series also make reference to the tradition. Cajun music has its roots based in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada, and in country music. A Cajun accordion , also known as a squeezebox, is single-row diatonic button accordion used for playing Cajun music. Louisiana French is an umbrella term for the dialects and varieties of the French language spoken traditionally in colonial Lower Louisiana. As of today Louisiana French is primarily used in the U.S. state of Louisiana, specifically in the southern parishes. The flag of the ethnic Acadian (Cajun) region was designed in 1965 by Thomas J. Arceneaux. Arceneaux was the dean of the College of Agriculture at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He derived the flag from the University seal. Arceneaux was an early leader of the Louisiana French Renaissance Movement, a movement intended to renew interest and pride in the French- Acadian heritage, language, and culture of Louisiana. Dewey Jean Segura was born in Delcambre, Louisiana. He and his brother Edier Segura formed the duo known as the "Segura Brothers". The duo created some of the earliest Cajun music in the late 1920s. Inez Catalon was an American Creole ballad singer, who was one of the most well-known performers of the genre known as Louisiana "home music". These are a cappella versions of ballads and love songs, drinking songs, game songs, lullabies and waltzes performed by women in the home, passed down from earlier generations to provide entertainment for the family before radio and television existed. Home music is not considered part of the public performance repertoire of Cajun and zydeco music because the songs were sung in the home by women, rather than in the dance halls of southwestern Louisiana which featured almost exclusively male performers. Irene Whitfield Holmes was an American ethnomusicologist, educator, and a significant collector of Cajun, Creole, and Louisiana French folk songs. Simpson Jean, Signed. Hot Numbers: Use Numerology to Discover What Makes Your Lover, Boss, Friends, Family, and You Realy Tick! by Jean Simpson (1986, Hard. Simpson, Jean. Published by Three Rivers Press, 1986. Used - Hardcover Condition: VERY_GOOD. Condition: VERY_GOOD. Hard cover w/dj; nearly AS NEW; signed / inscribed by author on first page. loc BR G BOT LEFT; FAST SHIPPING, . MY . Hot Numbers: Use Numerology To Discover What Makes Your Lover, Boss, Friends, Family, And You Realy Tick!: Signed. Simpson, Jean. Published by Crown Pub, New York, New York, U.S.A., 1986. First Edition Signed. Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. A Good Copy - Signed By The Author On The Front Free End Page. Author'S Signature Only. First Edition, First Printing, With The Corresponding Number Line. Book Is In Very Good Condition. Boards Are Clean, Not Bumped. Fore Edges Have A Small Amount Of Reading Wear. Interior Is Clean And Legible. Not Remaindered. Dust Jacket Is In Very Good Condition. Tiny Bit Of Chip And Crinkle Along The Edge. Not Price Clipped. Dust Jacket Is Covered By Mylar Wrapper. Thanks And Enjoy. Signed by Author(s). Book. The Adventures of Frankie & Jessie. Simpson, Jean. Published by Collins, London, 1958. First Edition Signed. Used - Hardcover Condition: Good Plus - Very Good. Hardcover. Condition: Good Plus - Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good Plus. Geraldine Spence (illustrator). First Edition. 1958. 160pp. B&W illustrations. "Jean Simpson has a flair for amusing dialogue and hilarious situations . " Author's signature and inscription to FFEP thus, "To Wallace with love from Jeannie Oct 31. 1958.". 'Wallace' was W.W. Robson the literary critic and scholar. Shelf wear and browning to unclipped jacket. There is a small nick (0.5cm wide x 0.5 cm deep) to top edge of cover. Light fading to boards and foxing to edges. Both book and dust jacket are otherwise in very good condition. All contents are tight and clean. Size: 7.8" Tall. Signed by the author. One Generation at a Time: Biography of a Cajun and Creole Music Festival. Barry Jean Ancelet; Philip Gould; Benny Graeff; David Simpson. Published by Univ of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 2007. Used - Softcover Condition: Very Good. Soft Cover. Condition: Very Good. Soft cover, minor wear and one scuffed spot on spine, signed by both authors on first end paper, nice copy. Signed by Author. An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Poetry (Inscribed by Translator Richard Wilbur to fellow poet Frank Stanford) Bishop, Elizabeth and Emanuel Brasil, Editors (Translated by Galway Kinell, Louis Simpson, Jean Valentine, Richard Wilbur et al) Published by Wesleyan University, Middletown, 1972. First Edition Signed. Used - Hardcover Condition: Very Good. Cloth. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: good. First edition. Clothbound octavo in dustwrapper. Stated first edition. 181 pp. Edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth Bishop and Emanuel Brasil. A volume of Brazilian poetry as translated into English by a variety of translators including Bishop, James Merrill, W. S. Merwin, Mark Strand, James, Wright and Richard Wilbur among others. Navy cloth covers are lightly worn. A handsome very good copy in rubbed and worn price-intact dustwrapper. This copy INSCRIBED BY RICHARD WILBUR TO FELLOW POET FRANK STANFORD. Wilbur dates his inscription 1972 (year of publication). "For Frank Stanford, good luck, Richard Wilbur, 1972". Stanford was just getting his writing career going in 1972. Excellent provenance will be provided to purchaser. Tell us what you're looking for and once a match is found, we'll inform you by e-mail. Can't remember the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. One Generation at a Time: Biography of a Cajun and Creole Music Festival. As Dewey Balfa so eloquently put it, "A culture is preserved one generation at a time." He also insisted that tradition is not a product but a living process. "It's like a tree. If you water the roots, the branches will grow." The annual festival that grew out of the first Tribute to Cajun Music in 1974 represents a practical application of that philosophy. Over its three decades, this festival, since 1977 the music component of Lafayette's Festivals Acadiens, has been a proving ground for this evolution. One Generation at at Time tells the inside story of this experiment in cultural self-preservation, taking the reader onstage, backstage, and into the crowd with schedules, commentary, and photographs from each year—up until 2006—exposing the cultural mission of festival organizers. Cultivating Folk Buds: The Horti-culture of Folk Studies. The name Louisiana Folk Roots implies a validation and veneration of the past, but the past is only part of our story. Preserving the past for its own sake can only produce a museum or preservation hall filled with the wonderful things that used to be. It is at least as important to consider the ‘folk buds’ of the present and the future as well. The real challenge of folklore and cultural studies is to discover and understand the past so that it can serve to inform the present and define the future in the most appropriate ways. With the digital, electronic and cyber resources currently available, it is easy to import culture willy-nilly from anywhere. If we are not to lose ourselves in what called a ‘cultural gray-out,’ we must celebrate and practice what is our own. But in order to do that, we must first know what is truly ours and we must prize it. And if what is our own is to affect the way we live and the way we will live, we must learn to use it to improvise and create new expressions of it on its own terms. Culture is not a static product, but a dynamic, ongoing process. Organic change that comes from the inside is not a problem, it is necessary to the very existence of culture. As Cajun musician and cultural activist Dewey Balfa so eloquently put it, ‘I‘m interested in the very life of this culture and how it continues to evolve on its own terms. I don‘t want to freeze-dry it or pin it to a wall like a dead butterfly’ Over the years, and especially since the 1970s, a new generation of Cajun and Creole scholars has studied the past, driven by a desire to understand who we are and why we are the way we are: why we sing the songs we sing, eat the foods we eat, build the houses we build, tell the stories we tell, work and play the ways we do, what makes us laugh and what gives us the frissons, the chills and goosebumps we feel in the presence of real culture and real emotion. The first Tribute to Cajun Music Concert in 1974, as well as the issues that emerged and evolved as the concert became an annual festival, was one of the first expressions of this folklore study. The programming of the festival was based on an integration of ideas that grew out of two distinct camps: on the one hand, activist folklife-based considerations as influenced by the Smithsonian Institution‘s Festival of American Folklife; and on the other, linguistic-based considerations that grew out of The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana‘s language and cultural preservation initiatives. Fieldwork and programming practices evolved based on a desire to discover and present excellent folk performers from real-life (authentic) contexts, avoiding the more self-conscious, public purveyors of folkloric (authentic-like) culture. The fieldwork practices that grew out of the festival experience also contributed to the collection and analysis of other traditional genres in French Louisiana, including oral tradition and material culture. Selecting the collection of performers who would essentially define the moment in Cajun music and zydeco each year posed interesting problems and opportunities for festival producers, including the incorporation of young performers and the new, emerging styles that are necessarily part of living traditions. Balfa, the festival‘s conscience, was not only a musician, but what folklorists have come to call a community scholar, a member of a folk community who has learned to address the issues that are at the heart of the study and practice of folklore, such as cultural equity, described by Alan Lomax as the relationship between preservation and innovation within the traditional context. I learned at least as much from Dewey as from any professor I ever had in a formal university setting. The fieldwork we did for the festival was a natural extension of the activist field-work that had begun when John and Alan Lomax began collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress in the 1930s. Our initial effort was an overwhelming success, surprising even the most enthusiastic of our collaborators, packing Lafayette‘s Blackham Coliseum despite lightning, thunder and driving rain. The event turned out to be the largest mass rally of what would come to be called the Louisiana French renaissance movement. We saw the opportunity to use the energy produced by this initial concert to fuel a long-term project. Balfa, who had seen the benefit of the archives at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian institution, insisted on the establishment of a similar bank of information on ourselves here in Louisiana. When I pointed out that we did not have the financial resources to create an archive, Balfa pointedly asked, ‘Do you have enough money to buy a tape?’ I answered yes, and he continued, ‘Then buy one and go out and record an interview and put that tape on a shelf. Then record another one when you can afford it. And when you put that second tape next to the first one on the shelf, you have the beginnings of an archive.’ He was right, as usual; the beginnings of the archive were just that homemade. About the same time, the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana bought dozens of tapes and funded early recording efforts, using the fieldwork tapes in French radio programming. The Rockefeller Foundation also provided critical support, buying hundreds of additional reels of tape. We also contacted folklorists who had worked in Louisiana in the past, including the Lomaxes, Harry Oster and Ralph Rinzler and obtained copies of their fieldwork materials. Other collections, such as those of Elizabeth Brandon, William Owen and Corinne Saucier were also obtained. Now, gathered in one place for the first time, these materials provided a sense of the evolution and development of Cajun and Creole music from unaccompanied ballad tradition to contemporary dance band styles. Fieldwork on oral tradition and material culture was added as well. And the ongoing field recordings of students and colleagues continue to enrich our understanding of Louisiana‘s Cajun and Creole cultures. But the collection was never intended to be an end in itself. Instead, it has served as a resource for cultural recycling. For example, when the Center for Cajun and Creole Folklore acquired copies of the Lomaxes‘ 1934 field recordings, our goal was not only to repatriate this important research. We provided copies to the families of the original performers and encouraged contemporary musicians to use the collection as a source for ‘new’ traditional material. In this spirit, the Center organizes festivals and special performances, television and radio programs, and offers classes and workshops through the university‘s graduate programs in Francophone Studies and English. The Center also produces books, articles and recordings that communicate new discoveries and interpretations to community members as well as scholars. Not too long ago there were precious few books and articles available on Cajun and Creole culture, and most of those were written by outsiders who often misrepresented our cultures because they lacked an in-depth understanding of them. I became interested in writing books and articles because I wanted to try to reverse that trend. But books and articles do not necessarily reach the large audiences of Cajuns and Creoles who need access to information about themselves. So the Center has explored other ways to disseminate its findings. We‘ve joined forces with record producers to release commercial recordings based on the fieldwork we‘ve collected. We‘ve partnered with radio producers and filmmakers to produce special programs and documentaries based on the fieldwork we‘ve collected. And we continue to collaborate with educational institutions to present singers and storytellers in classes and special lecture series. Student and faculty researchers have focused on a wide range of subjects, including the traditional Mardi Gras, traiteurs (faith healers), folk religion, folk justice, traditional humor, social institutions, foodways, dances and material culture. This research typically focuses on contemporary as well as historical aspects of the issues, reflecting Dewey Balfa‘s concern for considering folklore as a vital ongoing process rather than as a stagnant product. The roots and development of Cajun and Creole folklore are actively explored, taking researchers back to the regions of France (especially Poitou, Vendee and Bretagne) that provided most of the French settlement of Louisiana, as well as the other major sources of influence, including Spain, Germany, England, Ireland, Quebec and the Acadian Maritimes, the West Indies and Africa. Of particular interest is the process of creolization, the unique blending of cultures that occurred in Louisiana to produce the folk architecture, music, oral tradition and cuisine of the region. Through this range of activities, we try to integrate both sides of folkloristics, the scholarly and the public, without getting caught in the perceived trap between the two. For my own part, I became involved in fieldwork quite simply because I realized that it was the only way to reach the information that was missing from the record. The most important untapped source for information on the Cajuns and Creoles is the Cajuns and Creoles themselves. The fieldwork-based approach of provided a method to reach that source. Its naturally interdisciplinary nature, necessarily integrating considerations of history and art, text and context, provided the wide range of approaches needed to understand the complexities of culture and tradition, including oral tradition, traditional music, vernacular architecture, folk art and seasonal rituals, among other cultural expressions. Folklore studies also led to considerations of important cultural and social issues such as conservation, transmission and innovation within the context of tradition. It is not necessarily a good idea, nor is it even possible, to preserve everything from the past. In the first place, things evolve in a natural, culturally and socially organic way. If we tried to preserve everything, where would it end? When would we get around to living and enjoying the natural evolution of society and culture? As Balfa said, ‘A culture is preserved one generation at a time.’ While I‘d love to take a trip back in time to a Saturday night house dance in 1928 to hear Amede Ardoin and Dennis McGee perform, our real challenge is to figure out how to be Cajuns and Creoles in the 21st century. It is important to insure that the next generation knows as much as we can gather about Ardoin and McGee, but it is even more important that the next generation knows how Ardoin and McGee did what they did, so that someone from our time might have a chance to take us into the future in a culturally meaningful and responsible way. For our efforts to work, we‘ve got to consider the whole tree. We water the roots so the buds will grow. Barry Jean Ancelet is Professor of Francophone Studies and Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This article was first published in Louisiana Folk Roots‘ publication Routes to Roots , Volume 1, 2005. Festivals Acadiens et Créoles: Excerpts From One Generation at a Time. Hurricane Delta and the Covid-19 pandemic have been unable to stop Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, although this year's festival will have a unique place in history as the first to be held virtually. The festival itself is a cooperative of three independent festivals: the Louisiana Native and Contemporary Crafts Festival, the Festival de Musique Acadienne, and the Bayou Food Festival. In One Generation at a Time, Barry Jean Ancelet and Philip Gould recount the history of the Festival de Musique Acadienne, stressing its power to preserve the Cajun and Creole cultures. The first excerpt below depicts the original Tribute to Cajun Music that later grew into the Festival de Musique Acadienne. The subsequent excerpts capture scenes of celebration and interesting moments in the festival’s history. 1974 Tribute to Cajun Music Concert. "The first Tribute to Cajun Music concert was held in Blackham Coliseum in part to prevent the audience from dancing. Dewey Balfa, who had considerable experience playing in festivals and folk music concerts by then, suggested that the audience would hear the music in a different way if they were not allowed to dance as they usually did. Several other venues were considered, including the theater in the University of Southwestern Louisiana Student Union (which seated around 350) and the Lafayette Municipal Auditorium (now the Heymann Performance Center, which seated near 3,000). The Blackham Coliseum, with a capacity of 8,400, was selected for several reasons. Based on word-of-mouth reactions leading up to the event, organizers felt increasingly confident that there would be a significant response from the community. And Blackham, which also regularly hosted USL basketball games and rodeos, would be a more familiar context for the mostly rural Cajun and Creole audience members that would likely attend. That night, an overflow crowd of nearly 12,000 packed into the coliseum, filling all bleacher seats, all additional temporary floor seats, and all available standing room only spaces, despite the best efforts of law enforcement officials and fire marshals and despite a terrible storm that raged throughout most of the afternoon and evening, causing considerable local flooding. Performers volunteered their services. No one was paid, no one received even expenses to come. This represented a remarkable investment in the concept, especially for established performers such as Clifton Chenier and Jimmy C. Newman, who could have earned considerable sums for performing elsewhere that night." 1984 Festival De Musique Acadienne. "It turns out that this was a banner year for new introductions. This marked the first appearance for Ward Lormand’s Filé, for Bruce Daigrepont’s Bourré, and for Wayne Toups. Festival organizers were intent on showing the continuing vitality of Cajun music. All three groups electrified the crowds in different ways and were called back for encores. Ward Lormand formed his group after several years of apprenticeship in the deliberately regressive Cush-Cush. With Filé, he began to explore some of the opportunities for fusing the modern and the traditional in Cajun music. Bruce Daigrepont had discovered Cajun music at a previous festival and decided he wanted to perform the music of his heritage. With Bourré, he too began exploring the possibilities of creating within the tradition. A veteran of the young Cajun musician contests of the 1970s, Wayne Toups was just on the verge of launching his ZydeCajun experiment. He was so nervous before his set that he warmed up and tuned up without ever looking directly at the crowd. Once introduced, he started his performance still looking side-stage. When it came time to sing, he turned suddenly to face the microphone and the crowd, slipping his left hand out of the bass side of his accordion and letting the centrifugal force finish the draw on the bellows. When asked about this later, he explained that it was simply a case of nerves: “I was afraid that if I looked at that huge crowd before I had to sing, I might not be able to get my song out, so I just waited until the last second before turning to face them.” The dramatic effect of the gesture thrilled the crowd as did the rest of his performance." Dewey Balfa and Robert Jardell, 1980s, One Generation at a Time. 1993 Festival de Musique Acadienne. "This marked the first appearance by Kristi Guillory and Réveille, the Basin Brothers, and Jason Frey and the Cajun Rhythm Aces. The California Cajun Orchestra, led by Danny Poulard, paid a visit to remind the crowds of the popularity of Cajun and Creole Music among Louisiana ex- patriots living on the West Coast. Richard LeBoeuf was scheduled to perform just after a reunion of his hero and mentor Aldus Roger and his legendary Lafayette Playboys. This also marked the first festival appearance for Balfa Toujours, the group led by Dewey Balfa’s daughters Christine and Nelda. It was an emotionally charged experience for the members of the band, for the stage crew, and for the crowd as the critically and historically important Balfa name returned to the festival after a one-year hiatus following Dewey’s death in 1992. Zachary Richard also dropped in to sing a few songs between sets, including a rousing version of “Réveille.” When he first performed this musical manifesto at the second concert in 1975, the crowd wondered what it was all about. This time—the first time he performed the song in public in Louisiana since then—the crowd sang along, clear evidence that things have changed since those early years."