I think a person could drive himself crazy trying to figure out how any of this stuff in our culture came to be. I always compare it to a good gumbo, you just throw a whole bunch of Acadians, Napolean soldiers, black creoles from all over, Germans, Irish, whatever else, give it a good stir, let it simmer a good while, and there you got a good pot of Cajun language, music, danse, and food.
On the danse thing, where does the old contredanse fit it? I think it is French, but I'm not sure. Before the 1900's the contredanses, mazurkas, and polka were apparently popular, but for how long I dont know. Then there is the Colinda.....
In many countries it was not done to dance in couples until quite recently. Look f.e. in Brttany (France, where most of the dances are row dances. (Poitou, where people emigrated to LA, quite the same. Great Brittain also, more figure dances, but little contact between man and wife, less close than in Mazurka, Polka, Waltz, Schottish.).
Reason, moral! People (and church) were very conservative at that time.
(will be away for some days, afterwards will try to find something about dances in history).
Someone who used to post on this forum found this website a few years ago when the subject was discussed. Greg, you might like to explore these collections.
Excellent resource. This will take a while to go through. Really trying to visualize what the early 1900's house dance would have looked like and wondering if anyone tries to capture that feel using period music and dance. Thanks to all who have replied.
Greg
Try to find this CD ("Le Quadrille acadien" by Gérard Dôle/link above). He has recreated the music that people would dance to in Louisiana in the old days, with the help of several old Cajun musicians (Sady Courville, Frémont Fontenot...).
Hi Bryan and everyone
As someone who appreciates the Cajun culture, I enjoyed two books by Carl A Brasseaux , which discuss the history and evoloution of cajun people and culture. They are: "Acadian to Cajun, Transformation of a people, 1807-1877"(1992), and "French, Cajun, Houma, Creole, A Primer on Francophone Louisiana" (2005). They can be ordered on Amazon.com
Carl A Brasseaux is an amazing scholar and heads the Centre for Cultural and Eco Tourism at USL.
http://ccet.louisiana.edu/02a_Center_Associates_Bios/Brasseaux_Carl_A.html
Jude,
I was on business in eastern Texas during the Folk life festival. I love to dance, so when they said they were having a Cajun dance contest, I grabbed a local girl (who ended up being the state champion in corn shucking, but that's a different story) and jumped on the floor.
Well, to my surprise, they were doing a "different" two step. I one I knew was what I would call an "even" two step. (same number of steps on each side) They were doing one where you do a different number of steps with each foot.
Which two-step did you learn growing up?
Which two-step do you think is "more" traditional?
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
