LAKE
CHARLES, Louisiana (February 2012)—. The
new documentary T-Galop: a Louisiana
Horse Story will premier on Thursday, March 15th at 7:00 pm at the Central
School Arts and Humanities Center in Lake Charles as part of the Louisiana
Folklore Society’s Annual Meeting being hosted by McNeese State University.
T-Galop is the recent creation by
Conni Castille who made I Always Do My
Collars First (2007), and Raised on
Rice and Gravy (2009), and King
Crawfish (2010). The film screening is co-sponsored by the Arts and
Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana.
Nick
Spitzer, Amercian Routes, consulted with Castille on the film (Spitzer is also
the invited Keynote Speaker for the Annual Meeting and will address the public
on Friday, March 16, 7:00 p.m. at Stokes Auditorium). “T-Galop takes the audience deep into the horse play and work of
French Louisiana,” says Spitzer, adding that “Cajun and Creole cowboy and
cattle traditions are revealed from colonial times to present day swimming
herds, bush tracks, zydeco cowboys, mounted Mardi Gras revelers, knightly
“tournois”, workaday ranchers and famed jockeys. It’s all there.”
Indeed,
in T-Galop, Creole cowboys, Cajun
jockeys, Cotton Knights and Mardi Gras revelers reveal the long history and
blend between Creoles and Cajuns and the horses they love. “This equine love
affair began more than 250 years ago on the first ranches of South Louisiana
where Creoles became some of American’s first cowboys,” explains Castille, the
film’s writer and director. Not only essential to hard ranch work, horses were
often the focus of French Louisiana’s renowned joie de vivre. “The Creole and
Cajun idea of `passing a good time’ of course made its way into their horse
culture, like the old bush track racing that birthed so many great jockeys, or
the Mardi Gras horseback riders, or the leisurely Creole trail rides,” says
Castille. T-Galop romps playfully
across South Louisiana through professional sports to community rituals bearing
witness to a modern horse culture that was born many centuries ago.
T-Galop: a Louisiana Horse
Story will
in Lake Charles at the Central School, 809 Kirby Street on Thursday, March
15th, at 7:00 pm. Admission is free. Donations will be accepted to benefit the
Louisiana Folklore Society. For more information on the screening or the
Folklore Society’s Annual Meeting, call (337) 277-5292, or e-mail connicastille@gmail.com. T-Galop
was supported in part by grants from the Louisiana Endowment for the
Humanities, Louisiana Entertainment, Louisiana Economic Development
Association, and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural
Development, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism.
