Building Collaborative Partnerships through a Lower Ninth Ward Museum

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Regis ◽  
Rachel Breunlin ◽  
Ronald Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Collaborative Partnerships ◽  
City Center ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Sunday Afternoon ◽  
Birthday Party ◽  
History Of ◽  
Venice Biennale

During a recent Sunday afternoon parade in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Ronald W. Lewis hosted a birthday party for his wife Charlotte, during which he grilled in his backyard near the wraparound deck connecting his house to his museum, the House of Dance & Feathers (HODF). Dedicated to some of the most well known Black cultural traditions in New Orleans, including Mardi Gras Indians and Social and Pleasure Clubs, as well as the history of his neighborhood, it was founded by Ronald in 2003. After massive flooding devastated the neighborhood during Hurricane Katrina, the museum was rebuilt by Project Locus (a design and build nonprofit led by Patrick Rhodes), volunteer architecture students, and the Tulane City Center, and has since been featured in the Venice Biennale and Architectural Record.

Downtown Mardi Gras

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie A. Wade ◽  
Robin Roberts ◽  
Frank de Caro
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding region in 2005, the city debated whether to press on with Mardi Gras or cancel the parades. Ultimately, they decided to proceed. New Orleans’s recovery certainly has resulted from a complex of factors, but the city’s unique cultural life—perhaps its greatest capital—has been instrumental in bringing the city back from the brink of extinction. Voicing a civic fervor, local writer Chris Rose spoke for the importance of Carnival when he argued to carry on with the celebration of Mardi Gras following Katrina: “We are still New Orleans. We are the soul of America. We embody the triumph of the human spirit. Hell. We ARE Mardi Gras”. Since 2006, a number of new Mardi Gras practices have gained prominence. The new parade organizations or krewes, as they are called, interpret and revise the city’s Carnival traditions but bring innovative practices to Mardi Gras. The history of each parade reveals the convergence of race, class, age, and gender dynamics in these new Carnival organizations. Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans examines six unique, offbeat, Downtown celebrations. Using ethnography, folklore, cultural, and performance studies, the authors analyze new Mardi Gras’s connection to traditional Mardi Gras. The narrative of each krewe’s development is fascinating and unique, illustrating participants’ shared desire to contribute to New Orleans’s rich and vibrant culture.

scholarly journals Chapter 3

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Adele Baruch ◽  
Daniel Creek
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Natural Disaster ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Right ◽  
Special Circumstances

The special circumstances related to helping in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—both a natural disaster and a man-made catastrophe—are explored. Stories of individual, formal, and informal networks of helping, alongside stories of exploitation and despair, were shared by participants. Significant to the history of the aftermath of Katrina was the eventual formalizing of some of the informal helping networks, such as the establishment of a musician’s village and performance center in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. The theme of “doing the right thing” echoed throughout our participant interviews, as did “the chance to move beyond angry.” Stories of helping appeared to provide examples of hope to the citizens affected by the storm, as well as encouragement towards purposeful action. The stories of helping, along with participation in altruistic social networks, appear to provide a pathway to the recollection and transformation of traumatic memories.

After the Flood

2018 ◽  
pp. 298-326
Author(s):  
Jason Berry
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Social Controversy ◽  
Black Indians ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Life Force ◽  
The City

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, killing over 1,000 people and displacing over 1 million. As the rebuilding process began, musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, and Social Aid and Pleasure Club members began trickling back. Culture prevailed as politics failed. The life force of music and memory, determined to survive, came back to the shattered city. The hurricane wasn’t the only devastating force: the city had undertaken many urban development projects in Tremé throughout the second half of the 20th century, demolishing historical areas and displacing people. New Orleans has also long suffered from government corruption, and several politicians were arrested throughout the 2000s. Yet hope and vibrancy abound. The 2014 funeral for Larry Bannock, Big Chief of the Golden Starhunters, drew a large gathering of black Indians in a magnificent cultural spectacle. Amidst much political and social controversy, Mayor Mitch Landrieu removed the Robert E. Lee statue from the city in 2017. As New Orleans begins its fourth century, it faces issues of gun violence, poverty, and gentrification, but opportunities from a flourishing digital economy, resurgent music scene, and cultural mecca as well. It is still the vibrant, diverse society composed of people whose roots lie across the world, whose resilience has been a rudder through the storms and violent upheavals throughout the centuries.

All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival.

1995 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 1230
Author(s):  
Frederick Barton ◽  
Reid Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
History Of

City of a Million Dreams

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Berry
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Andrew Jackson ◽  
Jazz Music ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Michael White ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Secret Agent ◽  
The City

In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.

Social Vulnerabilities and Hurricane Katrina: An Unnatural Disaster in New Orleans

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley Laska ◽  
Betty Hearn Morrow
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Land Development ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Resilient Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Vulnerabilities

Social science research on natural disasters documents how a natural hazard such as a hurricane becomes a disaster through social processes and social structures that place human populations in general, and certain segments in particular, at risk. After a description of Hurricane Katrina and its impact, we describe how patterns of land development, and the economic and political history of New Orleans, set the stage for this disaster. An overview of past research findings on the relationship between citizen vulnerability and poverty, minority status, age and disability, gender and tenancy is followed by evidence of the extent to which each risk factor was present in the pre-Katrina New Orleans population. The authors then cite evidence of how social vulnerability influenced outcomes at various stages of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, including mitigation, preparation, evacuation, storm impacts, and recovery. The concluding section discusses how the goal of disaster resilient communities cannot be reached until basic issues of inequality and social justice are addressed.

All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival.

1996 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 431
Author(s):  
Samuel C. Kinser ◽  
Reid Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
History Of

Jockomo

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Lief ◽  
John McCusker
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Language History ◽  
Regional Language ◽  
Indian Tradition ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Reconstruction Era ◽  
History Of

This book represents the very first publication to explore how Native American traditions have influenced the history of New Orleans music over the past three centuries, specifically how this connection has culminated in the Mardi Gras Indian cultural system. In addition to including the perspectives of the cultural participants themselves, this book draws upon manuscripts and archives from the earliest days of the French colony of Louisiana, providing a range of views on how the Mardi Gras Indian tradition developed. A number of linguistic analyses focus on Native terms which are significant for regional language history. By showing these Native roots, the authors give empirical evidence for a much earlier origin for the Mardi Gras Indian tradition than has previously been recognized in conventional New Orleans historiography. A series of archival images and contemporary photographs help the reader to visualize the transformations of public life in New Orleans, including musical processions in the streets of the city during Mardi Gras celebrations. The complex background of the “American Indian” icon is also recognized as a component in how Mardi Gras Indians have developed their cultural practices over time. Key political events and time periods, such as the Civil War and the Reconstruction era that followed, are indispensable to understanding how the Mardi Gras Indians emerged in New Orleans during the nineteenth century. This book features rare images, such as the first known photograph of Mardi Gras Indians, giving the reader a more complete audiovisual journey through New Orleans history.

Contemporary Artists Respond to the Baby Dolls

Walking Raddy ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 285-313
Keyword(s):  
Trinidad And Tobago ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
Mardi Gras ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Baby Doll ◽  
Contemporary Artists

This chapter discusses the process of negotiation of cross cultural participation and permission of playing mas within black cultural traditions. Using a personal narrative approach the author reflects on her experiences of playing Mas in Trinidad and Tobago Carnival and her desires to play Mas as a Baby Doll in New Orleans Mardi Gras. The author contends her participation cannot be purchased and seeks new ways to adopt a deeper understanding of the history tradition of the Baby Dolls and honor them in a documentary.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document