Fest Noz
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A Fest Noz (Breton: festival of the night) is a Breton traditional festival, similar to a céilí.
There is traditional music and dancing, accompanied by drinking.
Although the traditional dances of the Fest Noz are old, some dating back to the Middle Ages, the Fest Noz tradition is more recent, dating back no further than the 1950s.
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 des fest-noz.
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[edit] Fest-noz
A fest-noz is a traditional festival (essentially a dance) in Brittany. Many festoù-noz are held outside Brittany, bringing the Breton culture to life outside Breton territory.
In the past, many of these dances were held officially in order to trample the ground so as to have a firm earth floor in a house or a solid surface for farm work (the "aire neuve" dances), which explains the presence of stamping movements in the dances. At one 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 also to see how quickly they got tired since dances would sometimes go on for a long time and involve complex and swift steps needing a certain amount of effort and skill.
These days, dancers are mainly looking to have a good time dancing in a group and spend some quality time together. A lot of people talk of sometimes reaching a state of trance thanks to the music (powerful and repetitive, which could also be compared to that of raves) and the physical exertion. In many ways, taking part in a large fest-noz (like those which are often held near larger Breton towns and cities) is like an evening in a night club.
[edit] The dances
There are hundreds of traditional dances, of which the most well-known are gavottes, 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.). Fest Noz Spezet images.
[edit] The music
There are principally two types of music that you can hear at these festivals: music sung a cappella (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 (biniou kozh), due to their high volume. You could also find the diatonic accordion, the clarinet, and occasionally the violin and the hurdy-gurdy. After the Second World War, the Scottish bagpipes (and biniou bras) became commonplace in Brittany thanks to bagadoù (musical groups) 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 (Diwall, Skeduz,...) 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.
[edit] The programme
There is no standard programme, but one may note the regular holding of a «free stage» before the arrival of a well-known group where the stage is open to any willing musician, singer or group... and it is often the latter who, at the end of the night, keep the hardcore dancers who always want more dancing into the small hours.
Between each group, there may be a short break allowing the dancers to have a snack with a choice generally including crêpes, galettes-saucisses, far breton, kouign amann and, to drink, cider, apple juice, beer, and chouchen, a traditional drink made from fermenting honey in water.
