For our Saturday evening dance, and the festival closer, we are lucky to have Dennis Stroughmatt and the Creole Spirit. Stroughmatt is an Illinois native who was first introduced to American French culture as a teenager near Old Mines, Missouri. He then spent two and a half intensive years recording, observing, and learning many of the Creole French traditions still alive in “Upper Louisiana”. The knowledge that he gained there included a centuries old French Creole fiddling style, fluency in Illinois-Missouri Creole French, and a wealth of stories and songs from story tellers and singers; all of which have been handed down generation to generation in Missouri and Illinois for nearly 300 years.

Dennis went on to live and work in southwest Louisiana as an assistant curator at the Vermilionville Folklife Center in Lafayette, LA and also became fluent in “Lower Louisiana” Creole Music and Cajun/Creole French and quickly grasped old-style Cajun and African Creole fiddling with fervor.  After earning a Masters Degree of History at Southern Illinois University and eventually a certificate of Quebecois Studies and Language at the University of Quebec, since 1999 Dennis has been a touring French Creole musician and speaker working across the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Dennis Stroughmatt and Creole Spirit host a jam on Saturday at 4:30pm and then play the dance that night at 9pm.

[audio:dennis.il.est.ne.mp3,dennis.grandmere.mp3,dennis.big.rooster.mp3]