Festival fun: Let's Boogaloo through the weekend

By Carrie White
Correspondent

Zydeco, étouffée, beignet. Whether those words sound familiar or foreign, add a trip to the 21st annual Bayou Boogaloo to your calendar.

The Cajun food, music and culture festival kicks off tonight at Norfolk's Town Point Park.

Domenick Fini, the sales and operations director for Norfolk's Fest-events, said employees found inspiration for the Boogaloo at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, commonly known as Jazz Fest.'

"They thought it was so cool that they wanted to bring something like it back up here," Fini said. Fest-events tries to make the "experience as authentic as possible. We even ship up 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of crawfish from Louisiana."

Several of the 15 full-menu food vendors are from New Orleans, serving traditional Cajun and Creole fare such as étouffée (a stewlike dish, usually with seafood, served with rice) and beignets (French doughnuts), in addition to soft-shell crabs, alligator, fresh oysters, corn, po-boys, dirty rice and other festival favorites, such as soft pretzels and funnel cakes.

The music is another huge draw. Three stages will host about 15 musical acts.

"These are amazing artists - there are a lot of Grammy winners in the group - and while local audiences might not be as familiar with the names, these artists are well-known there," Fini said.

Performers include Buckwheat Zydeco, Allen Toussaint and Terrance Simien. The Neville Brothers' Nevillution will headline on the main stage Saturday night.

The Missing Kidney Tent will be the site "to catch really authentic music - a lot of zydeco," a fast tempo folk music featuring rubboards, fiddles, horns and guitars, Fini said.

"There will be a lot of house bands, so that's the place where you can dance like nobody's looking."

Street performers like those around the French Quarter's Jackson Square include magicians, jugglers, fortunetellers, caricature artists and a world champion hacky-sacker. The Arts Council of New Orleans and Festevents selected a couple dozen artists to exhibit and sell work at the festival. The collaboration started five years ago when Festevents donated about $25,000 worth of services to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Festevents sent motor coaches for the artists, hired a moving company for the art, provided free booth space and even lodging for the New Orleans artists to help the devastated community. Festevents continues to provide a subsidy for the artists who participate in the festival.

New Orleans now also struggles with the Gulf oil spill crisis. Fini said the Bayou Boogaloo has been relatively unaffected by the disaster.

"Crawfish are a little more expensive only because people are eating them instead of shrimp," Fini said. "Crawfish are more inland and live in freshwater areas so the oil hasn't really touched them."

The entire festival, say organizers, will be nonstop music, food and fun.

Carrie White, caramine@aol.com