Posts Tagged ‘Glen Echo’
Q & A with Dancing by the Bayou’s Michael Hart and Sharon Schiliro
Louisiana Creole and Cajun music has long had a home in the D.C. area. From the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the Twist and Shout club and Wolf Trap’s “Swamp Romp” to Texas Fred Carter’s WPFW Saturday afternoon radio show and dances at Glen Echo Park, distinctive fiddle and accordion-led bayou sounds have always been on the area’s musical menu.
On October 17 and 18, dance instructors and promoters Michael Hart and Sharon Schiliro presented the 1st annual “Dancing by the Bayou” festival at Glen Echo. The event hosted a number of Louisiana and D.C. zydeco and Cajun bands for people to dance to throughout that weekend. The roster included Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-chas, Jesse Lege & Bayou Brew, and Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners among many others.
Hart and Schiliro, who will be presenting a dance at Glen Echo on Sunday, November 8 with the Acadien Cajun Band, talked to me recently via e-mail about their festival and the state of zydeco and Cajun music in the Capital region. They combined most of their responses.
City Paper: Do you think the recent festival will translate into increased enthusiasm for upcoming events, and/or will it be like that Buffalo Gap event—an annual thing that folks look forward to once a year?
Hart and Schiliro: I do think we may get a lift in attendance at the upcoming November/December dances, but weather, football games, etc. can always cut into the attendance; we shall see! We do have an outstanding Zydeco band for our Mardi Gras dance in February to be announced shortly! The Mardi Gras dance, in the last two years, has had great attendance for a week night!
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