Don’t let the snow keep you bottled up next to the home fire. Arnaudville’s big mid-winter celebration, Fire and Water flames up tonight at 4 p.m., with a Fire Starter Art Walk featuring Lori Henderson Studio, Bayou Blues Gallery, Steeple Vue Gallery and Deux Bayous Gallery Collective. Close out the night at the Frederick Stage with the “Fire Starter Dance,” featuring blues music by T-bone’d, Creole music with Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters with Mitch Reed and special appearances by students of Frederick l’Ecole des Arts Hunter Meche and Forest Huval. The Fire Starter Dance is a fund raiser for Cajuns for Bayou Teche, the group that has been trash bashing the bayou for the past year. $10 donation.
Fire it up on Saturday, with the lighting of the main bonfire and fire dancing performance with Alli Richard, at 6 p.m. Fire and Water is a festival and circus flared into one event. Listen up for a Petite Festival of Words featuring poet Darrell Bourque and Open Mic with Magnet Academy of Cultural Arts. Two Bayous Visual Art, Performance and Culinary Market will feature a variety of artists and presenters including Alex Nunez, Al Guilliot, Joella Leblanc, Rita Marks, and Donald Thibodeaux. Attend workshops and demonstrations by Bayou Teche Brewery, Chef Maureen Little, Roxanne Marks, Andrew Barron, Patricia Andres and Jerome Ford. Environmental performing and healing arts incorporating ‘green” elements into art and the home include how to make natural paints mediums and cornstarch burnishing material like cinnamon, cloves and coffee. Also enjoy aromatherapy skin painting creating Happy Faces with all natural products as well as a mini theatrical village.
Cool it down Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Photographer Greg Guirard presents Basin Keepers Environmental Day with music by Drew Landry and the Dirty Cajuns, Berard Family Band and more. $10 donation. Join the Organic Acoustic Jam, 1 to 4 p.m., at Tom’s Fiddle and Bow. And for the kids, Brown Bag Arts and Crafts Workshop at the Deux Bayous Gallery, Town Market Rural Arts Centre, $8 includes supplies.
Photo: Fire Dancer Ali Richard