Line-up takes shape for Cajun-Creole Heritage Week

Dewey Balfa event at Chicot in April

Posted January 22nd, 2010

Renowned local artists D’Jalma Garnier, Kristi Guillory, Chas Justus, Jesse Legé, Ed Poullard, Christine Balfa Powell, Dirk Powell, Kevin Wimmer and Linzay Young are on tap as full-time instructors for Louisiana Folk Roots’ upcoming Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week, April 16-23, at Chicot State Park.
The line-up also includes Instructor Coordinator Peter Schwarz, Culinary Director Chef Patrick Mould, and many popular local bands including Balfa Toujours, Jonno Frishberg & Bayou Deville, The Red Stick Ramblers, The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys, and The Pine Leaf Boys, with many others to be announced soon.
The annual week-long, culturally immersive DBCCHW draws participants and visitors from across the region, the state, the U.S. and from around the world to beautiful Chicot State Park near Ville Platte, Louisiana. Full-time participants stay in the park’s deluxe waterfront cabins, convenient group dorms, or in the park’s well-equipped campsites and enjoy a full week of intensive classes in accordion, fiddle, guitar or French Immersion, as well as great Louisiana cuisine served up by Chef Mould.
The week also includes an array of exciting workshops, cooking demonstrations, master artist sessions, Cajun and zydeco dance lessons and jam sessions, as well as a family-friendly weekend festival and dances every night with top bands. The festival days and the nightly dances are open to the public, and part-time participation in the week’s other activities is encouraged.
There’s even more great news to come as additional bands and instructors are confirmed. Cabins, dorms and campsites are filling up quickly, but there are still spaces available. To find out more, visit the Louisiana Folk Roots website at www.lafolkroots.org or get in touch with LFR at 337-234-8360 or info@lafolkroots.org. To join the LFR e-mail list and receive all the latest news as it happens, contact info@lafolkroots.org.
The DBCCHW is co-hosted with the Louisiana Office of State Parks.
Louisiana Folk Roots and its programs are funded through grants from ConocoPhillips, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Acadiana Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, Lafayette Consolidated Government, and through the generous support of Friends of Louisiana Folk Roots and our communities.