Bålder At The Octoroon Balls

Helsinki International Artists Association biggest event in year 2021.

"HIAA Fest" takes place at the beautiful venue of Villa Bokvillan.
This year has been challenging for all of us, but it also has brought many discoveries for our members. HIAA Fest will reflect on artist's creativity during the pandemic.

The three-day festival will consist of multiple activities and will invite everyone for a colourful adventure with music, dance, art workshops, craftsmen market and art exhibition!

About the programme:

At the Octoroon Balls paints a picture of long-ago New Orleans life. The elegant dance balls in the title were part of the 19th-century system of plaçage, a long-term relationship between a free woman of color and a white man that existed separate from the marriage code (which didn’t permit interracial relationships). Though the balls themselves probably never happened, they exist in the half-imagined history and larger-than-life stories of New Orleans history that have come down to us. “A ball is a ritual and a dance,” Marsalis wrote in the program notes for the premiere. “Everybody was in their finest clothing. At the Octoroon Balls there was an interesting cross-section of life. People from different stratums of society came together in pursuit of pleasure and fulfillment. The music brought people together.”

This quartet is a sort-of New Orleans dance suite, full of humor, fire, vigor, surprises, and incomparable style. “Creole Contradanzas” is based on the habanera rhythm. Marsalis describes it as, “A syncopated three beat pattern, I learned it growing up in New Orleans. We employ it in everything from traditional jazz to Mardi Gras Indian chants to Creole songs to funk tunes and on and on.” “Many Gone” is a free ballad led by the cello and “Hellbound Highball” is based on the manic sound of trains barreling down the track.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/balder-at-the-octoroon-balls-tickets-169320631567

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