We're now in our ninth year of producing the Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week, which is designed primarily for adult learners and was inspired by the legacy of legendary Cajun fiddler and cultural ambassador Dewey Balfa. Now our summer camp for kids, specifically targeted to local kids ages 6-12, will go one step further, helping to pass Cajun and
Creole traditions on to the next generation in an atmosphere that will combine intensive learning with good old-fashioned fun. The day camp will run in two independent one-week sessions, June 16-20 and June 23-27. Both sessions will be held Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., at Louisiana Folk Roots, located in the Acadiana Center for the Arts, 101 W. Vermilion Street in downtown Lafayette. The tuition for each one-week session is just $175.

Participating youngsters will bring their own instruments -- accordion, fiddle or guitar -- and will bring their own lunches each day. The camp is funded in part by the 2008 Challenge America: Reaching Every Community Invitational Initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. This prestigious grant award will enable us to hire top local musicians as camp instructors. Some of Acadiana's best-known young-adult Cajun and Creole musicians will serve as instructors, providing campers with friendly role models and inspiring them to continue study on their own once the camp is over. The team of instructors will include Chris Segura, fiddler of the young Cajun band Feufollet, who started playing
professionally at age 11; Courtney Granger, grand-nephew of Dewey Balfa and member of the band Balfa Toujours, who released his first solo album at 16; and Kristi Guillory, accordion player of the all-female band Bonsoir, Catin, who formed her first band when she was 12 years old.

Campers will study one instrument intensively during the week, taking classes with two different instructors who specialize in that instrument. They will also play in "band labs," which will organize the kids into small practice groups that will each give a performance at the end of the week. Beginning and intermediate classes will be offered to accommodate kids on different levels, but there will be ample opportunity for all the campers to interact, with the beginners learning from more advanced youngsters.

Like our adult-oriented camps, the kids' camp will include many different activities so that campers will be fully immersed in Cajun and Creole culture. In addition to musical instrument classes, campers will take French singing and dance classes, and special events during the week will include cooking, Louisiana cultural history, and a field trip. The camp will be Directed by Henry Hample, a fiddler and music teacher from New York City. He earned a master's degree in Ethnomusicology at Brown University in 1998, and moved to Arnaudville, Louisiana, in 2007. "This is like a dream project for me," says Hample. "I've been teaching Cajun and Creole music to both kids and adults for years, but to put it all
together into an intensive program that will help preserve these traditions is like the culmination of everything I've ever done."

Space is limited for this one-of-a-kind summer camp experience, so please give us a call at (337) 234-8360 or e-mail us at info @ lafolkroots.org to register or if you have any questions.