Mardi Gras Masquerade Dance Party Fundraiser!

We are going to shake it loose and brighten our winter nights with a festive light show and a brassy Carnival sound journey. Come dance it out with us!

This is a way to claim our joy, share some festivities with friends, and support Dreaming Stone and our arts education work with Rutherford County students.

Come dressed in flare, flaunt your wildness, fly that freak flag! If you don’t have any flare, you will find some at the dance party (as well as King Cake to share). Come for as long or as short as you like. Beer and non-alcoholic drinks will be available for purchase.

While some might think of Mardi Gras as a wild debaucherous party, it is actually a Christian festival (fat Tuesday) that immediately precedes Lent, AND has ancient roots in the pre-Christian festivals of Saturnalia and Bacchanalia. During Saturnalia all class distinctions were abolished, with slaves and their masters switching roles, and laws normally governing sensible behavior suspended.

The greatest contemporary Carnivals, like those in Brazil, Trinidad, and New Orleans, reveal theat the tradition flourished where Catholic European Settlers and enslaved African communities interacted. Carnival and Mardi Gras music, dance, costumes and street party customs echo the African festivals that encircled the village to celebrate, heal or summon good fortune. For Africans in Diaspora, carnival became a tool for both emancipation and preservation of cultural memory in the midst of bondage.

Help us keep alive this profound hoiday! May we dance with abandon untill we find our way into the more beautiful world together!