This year’s pre-festival symposium will be expanded to explore in greater depth the festival theme, Revolution and Evolution: Celebrating 250 Years of Cultural Fusion on the Bayou. Presented from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second floor of the Hilliard Art Museum, the daylong program is part of a special collaboration among the Center for Louisiana Studies, Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, the Smithsonian, and the Hilliard. Scholars, musicians, folklorists, culture bearers, and media figures—including Sarah Le Menestrel, Maureen Loughran, Christine Balfa, Ibrahima Seck, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, John Troutman, Dexter Ardoin, Nick Spitzer, Herman Fuselier, and others—will consider how Louisiana culture has been formed, transformed, documented, and shared with the world.
Sessions will bring together representatives from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and other parts of the Smithsonian, along with participants connected to Valcour Records, Arhoolie, and Louisiana’s independent music and media communities. Conversations will examine the Indigenous, African, European, and other cultural currents that shaped South Louisiana; the state’s Revolutionary-era history; the recording and circulation of Cajun and Creole music; Ralph Rinzler’s influential Louisiana fieldwork; and the role of mass media in shaping regional identity. The symposium will conclude with a gallery conversation and opening reception for an exhibition of Elemore Morgan Jr.’s photographs from the 1976 Smithsonian National Folklife Festival.