Blackpot Camp offers music, cooking classes, and a good time

Music, dancing and food are all slices of the pie that make up Louisiana’s history, and out-of-towners are camping out to get a piece of the action.
Chas Justus, an organizer of the Blackpot Festival, said, “People are coming from all over to get a piece of the culture. We wanted to start a food and music festival that is influenced by other festivals in the state. People who came to the festival wanted to learn to cook and dance, and Blackpot Camp provides that opportunity.”
The week-long camp, held at Lakeview Park and Beach, offers music classes in Cajun fiddle, accordion, guitar, old time banjo, guitar, fiddle, swing jazz and songwriting. There are dances each night and food from afternoon cooking demonstrations is served for supper.
While the Blackpot Festival, which will be Saturday and Sunday in Vermilionville, is celebrating its tenth year, this is the fifth year of the Blackpot Camp. The camp is held the Sunday evening through the Friday morning before the festival, and tomorrow, all the campers will pack it up and head to Vermilionville.
The official kickoff party for the festival will start at 7 p.m. today with dinner at The Barn, followed with music by Los Texmaniacs at 8 p.m. The dance is open to the public, and admission is $10. The festivities will crank back up at 7 p.m. Friday at Vermilionville. Bands will play all weekend long, and the festival cookoff is Saturday. For a list of bands and other events, visit www.blackpotfestival.com. The event will end with an after-party at Lakeview Sunday with Preston Frank and the Frank Family Band.
“The party starts the Sunday before the festival and just keeps expanding,” Justus said. “There are so many people are from out of state. I think there are more people from out of state than there are from in state at the camp.”
“If you’re coming here for the festival, may as well come here to the camp for the whole week. It’s such a cultural environment. You learn to cook, dance and even fish.”
According to Justus, one of the event’s original organizers, 70 people registered for the camp, more than last year’s event, and campers came from as far away as England, Austrailia, Canada and Alaska.
Rosie Newton of Ithaca, New York, meets up with friends each year at the camp.
“I teach music, dance and singing classes and play lots of Appalachian fiddle music,” Newton said. “I love to dance. I love everything about coming down here. I must have boudin the first day I’m down here or it just isn’t right.”
Laurn Kohn of Port Townsend, Washington, has attended the Blackpot Festival for eight years.
“I came with my mom and grandma,” Kohn said. “We Drove from Tyler, Texas, in the pouring down rain. In the first half hour of being at the festival, I swore to myself I would always come back for the festival. I enjoyed myself, and I’ve been coming back.”
Kohn, a jazz and blues singer, said she is slowly teaching herself to sing traditional Cajun music.
“There is such heartache in the music — how can you not love it?” she asked. “I love the food, too. The camp is a little bit of everything. The right people find their way here. It’s like a family — my Blackpot family. I left my heart here.”