A Fest Noz is a Breton

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 traditional festival, with dancing in groups and live musicians playing acoustic instruments.

Although most of the traditional dances of the Fest Noz are ancient, some dating back to the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, the current Fest Noz tradition is recent, dating back no further than the 1950s; its modern origins are found in the Breton celebration of the past referred to as Celtomania

Celtomania

Celtomania is the name given to the rise in popularity of Celtic literature and culture in the early nineteenth century. Important causes of this popularity were James Macpherson's publication of the Ossian poems, and sublime descriptions of Celtic landscape such as found in the works of Jacques...

.

The plural in Breton is festoù-noz, but the Goadec sisters (a family of traditional singers) used to say festnozoù, and the French may also say in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 des fest-noz.

Fest-noz

A fest-noz (plurial festoù) is a traditional dancing festival in Brittany. Most of the Breton dances are social dance, in group. Currently, many festoù-noz are also held outside Brittany within diaspora, bringing the Breton culture to life outside Breton territory. This term is known since the end of the 19th century but is given as a name only since the 1950s.

In the past, the dances were sometime used to trample the ground to make a firm earth floor in a house or a solid surface for farm work (the "aire neuve" dances), in which people from the neighbourhood were invited what explains the presence of stamping movements in some of the dances. During long time the church banned "kof-a-kof" (stomach-to-stomach) dances, meaning dancing in pairs. These festivals were a chance for young people to meet and size each other up, on a social level, by their clothes, and to see how quickly they got tired, since dances sometimes continued for a long time and involved complex and swift steps that required effort and skill.

These days, "Festoù Noz" are still very popular, mixing the different generations. Most of the villages have at least once a year a fest-noz, organised by the sports clubs, the school, etc... It is a way to express their culture and identity, and to share common values with friends of a night. As in many group folk dances one talk of sometimes reaching a trance state because of repetitive music, and physical exertion. During the summer and touristic season, in many ways, taking part in a fest-noz is for many people like an alternative way of going to a night club.

The dances

There are hundreds of traditional dances, of which the most well-known are gavotte

Gavotte

The gavotte originated as a French folk dance, taking its name from the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné, where the dance originated. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo...

s, the an dro

An Dro

An dro or en dro is a Breton folk dance in 4/4.-Technique:The dancers link little fingers in a long line, swinging their arms, and moving to their left by taking longer steps in that direction than when stepping right...

, the 'hanter dro, the plinn and the Scottish. During the fest-noz, most dances are practiced in a chain or in a circle (everyone holds hands), but there are also dances in pairs and "choreographed" dances», meaning dances enriched with precise artistic elements (sequences, figures, etc.).

The major study on Breton dancing is "La tradition populaire de danse en Basse-Bretagne", book written from his thesis dissertation, by Jean-Michel Guilcher - new edition by Coop-Breizh - Chasse-Marée/Armen - 1995.

The music

There are principally two types of music at these festivals: music sung a cappella

A cappella

A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 (kan ha diskan

Kan ha diskan

Kan ha diskan is likely the most common type of traditional music of Brittany. It is a vocal tradition . The style is the most commonly used to accompany dances...

, ...), accompanied with music or purely instrumental. Before the invention of microphones and amplified instruments, the instruments that were most often used were the bombarde (a sort of oboe or shawm) and the Breton bagpipes

Bagpipes

Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...

 (biniou kozh), due to their high volume. Also popular was the diatonic accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

, the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, and occasionally the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 and the hurdy-gurdy. After the Second World War, the Scottish bagpipes (biniou bras) became also common in Brittany thanks to bagad

Bagad

A bagad is a Breton band, composed of bagpipes , bombards and drums . The pipe band tradition in Brittany was inspired by the Scottish example and has developed since the mid-20th century...

où (pipe bands) and thus often replaced the biniou-kozh. The basic clarinet (treujenn-gaol - "cabbage core" in Breton) had all but disappeared but has regained popularity over the past few years.

Other than the traditional instruments, there are nowadays groups with many different styles of music ranging from rock, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, to punk and also mixes with styles from other countries. String instruments (the violin, the double-bass, the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, the bass guitar) and North-African percussion instruments have long since been adopted. To varying degrees, some Fest-Noz groups also use electronic keyboards and synthesisers (Strobinell, Sonerien Du, Les Baragouineurs, Plantec...). Brass instruments are becoming more and more commonplace, often bringing with them sounds approaching those of oriental music.

The programme

Just after the revival of the 1970s, the standard was to alternate couple of singers (a cappella or "kan a diskan")and couple of musicians (biniou - bombarde generally). It was common to see the holding of «free stages». Currently, couples of singers (kannerien) and couples of musicians (sonnerien) play alternately with a band. Bands play more instrumental music and often the practice of the dance is different from the two other way to conduct the dancers.

Between every "suites" (three dances), there is a small break where dancers socialise by speaking very easily to the other dancers or by having a local snack: crêpe

Crêpe

A crêpe or crepe , is a type of very thin pancake, usually made from wheat flour or buckwheat flour . The word is of French origin, deriving from the Latin crispa, meaning "curled". While crêpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France...

s, galettes-saucisses, far breton, kouign amann and drinks like cider

Cider

Cider or cyder is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from apple juice. Cider varies in alcohol content from 2% abv to 8.5% abv or more in traditional English ciders. In some regions, such as Germany and America, cider may be termed "apple wine"...

, beer, and chouchen

Chouchen

Chouchen is an alcoholic beverage popular in Brittany, France. A form of mead, it is made from the fermentation of honey in water. Chouchen normally contains 14% alcohol by volume...

, a drink made from fermenting honey in water.

External links

• Fest Noz Spezet