Ganondagan State Historic Site -- Preserving a Past. Providing a Future

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Native American Dance & Music Festival - Cercle Celtique, July 2009

What? French at Ganondagan?

It was the second time I had been approached by a local contact person for the Rennes-Rochester Sisters City Group indicating that the Cercle Celtique dancers were very interested in performing at Ganondagan. A few Iroquois people had visited Rennes France several years ago and did some storytelling and Iroquois social dancing - they wanted to reciprocate that gesture.

My first response was no - thinking of the history of Ganondagan and the French who destroyed the village. I tried to have an open mind and asked more questions about them. I learned they struggle to keep their traditional dances and music intact. I asked for them to send me a CD of their performance so our committee could review it. When I inquired about the number in their group and found out it could be 13-14. I explained that we could never afford to have them at Ganondagan. The response was that we would not have to pay for their travel or a performance fee - the group just wanted a venue to perform that would connect them with the Iroquois people.

I have to admit - since our budget less than previous years and funding tighter their offer sounded pretty tempting. After our committee members had a chance to review their performance video and discussed all the pros and cons of including this group - we, obviously, decided to include them in the program.

It has now been a couple of weeks after the festival and we are still receiving positive comments about the festival - and about Cercle Celtique. As one of the festival committee members I do not always get a chance to see the performances, but, on Saturday I kept hearing about the wonderful energy of this group. I finally did get to watch the group perform and agreed this was a 'high energy' group.

Sunday afternoon the group wanted to get a photo in front of the bark longhouse for a newspaper in France. After quite a few minutes of their coordinator trying to gather them together for that photo shoot they finally all headed out to the bark longhouse. I was on a golf cart and came back to the performance tent - I noticed two of the Cercle Celtique group members still there taking photos and enjoying conversation with audience members. I herded them into the golf cart and off we went down the trail to the bark longhouse.

Midway one of them breaks out his trumpet and starts playing as we rode along. I just indicated to those looking strangely at us that 'I was just the driver.' But, as the trumpet was heard by the other group members (who by the way -were in the bark longhouse listening to an interpretive talk) and came dancing out of the bark longhouse like it was a 'call to gather and dance.' The two I had in the cart jumped out, continued to play music while others danced. I drove away laughing and saying to myself 'wow! they certainly are happy to be here.' Every time I remember that ride in the golf cart I smile and can't help but think they came here in Peace - and how awesome it was that we were able to break down our barriers and let them come in. I hope you enjoyed some good energy from the festival weekend also.

Jeanette Miller
Executive Director

Want to know more about Cercle Celtique? Check out their webpage, www.astour.fr.

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