John Arcand Fiddle Fest

JOHN ARCAND FIDDLE CATEGORY ADDED TO 2012 FESTIVAL

We are proud to introduce a John Arcand contest category to the festival’s fiddle competition. It’s been mentioned quite a few times over the past years but with John being so humble, he always shrugged it off.

Last year at some point in the programming Vicki was talking about how Andy DeJarlis was the best known Métis composer to date, but how she felt John was coming in a close second. Again this brought a lot of survey feedback and an outpouring from folks saying “you should have a John Arcand Fiddle Category”… so we discussed it again and this time he said YES!!!

So practice up your John Arcand Tunes - there are over 390 of them! The John Arcand category will replace the Andy DeJarlis category and will run on Friday afternoon at 4:30 and will be a once through. Contestants will be asked to play a waltz and a tune of their choice composed by John. Categories will remain at 12 and under, 13 to 17 and 18 and over, with prizes for the top three in each.

Competitions

Fiddle Contest

Our Fiddle Contest was the first (that we are aware of) to include a Traditional Métis Category. And, now in 2012 we proudly introduce the John Arcand Category. These two classes speak strongly about our promotion and preservation of Métis Fiddling.

Along with these two classes we offer Novice 1 & 2* (12 and under) Junior 1 & 2*(13 to 18) Senior (60 and over) and Open 1 & 2* and Championship** classes.

*Category 2 - The John Arcand Fiddle Fest took the lead on another important initiative by introducing the "2" Categories into the Fiddle contest. The addition of the "2" categories is an effort to "Level the Playing Field". In many cases, people who had just started playing or had only played for a short period of time were competing against more skilled players making it impossible for them to place. By offering a "2" category we allow them to compete with others who are at the same playing level. The judges place competitor's into the "2" categories, following the preliminary rounds. In 2003 we introduced the "2" category into our Novice and Open classes and since then have added it to all remaining categories, with the exception of the Championship, Traditional Metis and John Arcand.

** Although we offer a Championship Category you do not register or enter Championship! At the John Arcand Fiddle Fest you enter the Open and the judges will advance the top five players into championship for the finals

Jigging Contest

Traditionally the Red River Jig was done in moccasins, footwork was kept extremely low to the ground and there was minimal movement of the body from the waist up. History and elders tell us that to end a tie in a competition back in the days of the fur trade, a saucer and a wine glass filled with wine was placed on the dancers heads, and whoever had the most wine left in their glass at the end of another round was declared the winner! There were also definite men’s steps and women’s steps and in those days many dancers could do as many as 80 changes!

When we first introduced the jigging contest to our program, this was the style that our founder John Arcand wanted to preserve and promote.

We have honoured his wish for many years, and in an attempt to increase the knowledge and improve on the contest we have done many things. We have introduced workshops to teach the traditional steps, modified the judging and the prizeboard and most recently separated the entire contest into contemporary and traditional, because we saw a need to support the efforts of those dancers not dancing in the traditional style.

We feel all of these efforts have greatly raised the awareness of the traditional style, but we are not succeeding in having the contest be “traditional - or - contemporary” and we are encountering problems separating the two. Disputes arose over traditional and non-traditional, fairness of judging, people dancing a traditional step but not dancing it “traditionally” (eg); the formation of the step was correct, was either male or female - but - was danced with the feet raised way too high off the floor to be counted and judged as a traditional step. All of this and the expectations of the participants have caused us to come to this conclusion.

This year, we will simply have a Red River Jigging Contest. The judges will still look for and award higher points to those dancing in a traditional style. The judges will have evaluation sheets for each dancer that participated and these will clearly indicate “what” they did that was traditional and show the extra marks associated with that. The judges will have time made available for the dancers to speak to them after they receive their evaluation sheets and this should help them get a better understanding of what the traditional style is.

We will also continue to offer our workshops in the traditional style with qualified traditional instructors and will continue to showcase traditional jigging every chance we get. We hope in doing this we can still work with those interested in learning about and dancing the traditional style and also hope our efforts will over time increase the number of traditional styled dancers and perhaps we will then once again introduce a “Traditional” class to the competitions.