A Fest Noz ( Breton for ''night festival'') is a Breton traditional festival, with dancing in groups and live musicians playing acoustic instruments. Although it is all too easy to write off the ' and ''fêtes folkloriques'' as modern inventions, most of the traditional dances of the Fest Noz are ancient, some dating back to the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, providing a way for the community to grasp hold of its past and relish a deep sense of being with ancestors and with place. 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 (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

''des fest-noz''. On 5 December 2012 the fest-noz was added by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

to the

Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity UNESCO established its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the aim of ensuring better protection of important intangible cultural heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance.Compare: This list is published by the Intergover ...

Fest-noz

A fest-noz (plural festoù-noz) is a traditional dance festival in Brittany. Most Breton dances are social dances, in a 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 sometimes 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), to which people from the neighbourhood were invited, which explains the presence of stamping movements in some of the dances. For a long time the church banned "kof-ha-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 a fest-noz at least once a year, 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 talks of sometimes reaching a trance state because of repetitive music, and physical exertion. During the summer and tourist 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 The gavotte (also gavot, gavote, or gavotta) is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. A ...

s, the an dro, the 'hanter dro, the plinn and the Scottish. During the fest-noz, most dances are practised 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 Jean-Michel Guilcher (24 September 1914 – 27 March 2017) was a French ethnologist. He was a researcher at the CNRS, and he taught ethnology at the University of Western Brittany. He was the author of eight books about traditional dances. Early ...

- 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'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

( kan ha diskan, ...), 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 (binioù kozh), due to their high volume. Also popular was the diatonic

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a ree ...

, the

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

, and occasionally the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

and the

hurdy-gurdy The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by a hand-crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a vi ...

. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the Scottish bagpipes (binioù bras) also became common in Brittany thanks to

bagad A bagad (, ) is a Breton band, composed of bagpipes ( br, binioù, french: cornemuse), bombards and drums (including snare, tenor and bass drums). The pipe band tradition in Brittany was inspired by the Scottish example and has developed si ...

où (pipe bands) and thus often replaced the binioù-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 is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, 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 increasingly commonplace, often bringing with them sounds approaching those of oriental music.

The programme

La galette saucisse de Rennes (3503247167)

Just after the revival of the 1970s, the standard was to alternate a couple of singers (a cappella or "kan a diskan") and a couple of musicians (biniou - bombarde generally). It was common to see the holding of «free stages». Currently, couples of singers (kanerien) and couples of musicians (sonerien) play alternately with a band. Bands play more instrumental music and often the practice of the dance is different from the two other ways to conduct the dancers. Between every "suite" (three dances), there are short breaks where dancers socialise by chatting to other dancers or visiting the traditional buffet of local dishes like

crêpe A crêpe or crepe ( or , , Quebec French: ) is a very thin type of pancake. Crêpes are usually one of two varieties: ''sweet crêpes'' () or ''savoury galettes'' (). They are often served with a wide variety of fillings such as cheese, ...

s, galettes-saucisses, far Breton, kouign-amann with local

cider Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and the Republic of Ireland. The UK has the world's highest per capita consumption, ...

, beer, and

chouchen Chouchen ( Breton: ''chouchenn'') is an alcoholic beverage native to Brittany. A form of mead, it is made from the fermentation of honey in water. Chouchen normally contains 14% alcohol by volume. Traditionally, buckwheat honey is used, and this ...

, a mead-like drink made from fermented honey.

References

External links