An old, curvy 1975 Airstream trailer, and they hit the road.
Deprived by the pandemic of their traditional meetings throughout the year, Celtic circles crisscross Brittany this summer to find the public, residents or holidaymakers.
“We suspected that the summer would once again be special because of the health context. We therefore launched a traveling festival by changing municipalities every day, with the idea of promoting both amateur practices but also supporting the recovery of intermittents who really need it after everything they have been through ”
, explains to AFP Mathieu Lamour, director of the Kenleur federation, which brings together more than 200 associations of circles, including twenty in the Paris region, and 22,000 members.
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Starting from Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine) on July 12, the
“Kenleur Tour”
has scheduled 54 stages, always free, from the north of Finistère to the Loire-Atlantique coast via the interior, until the final, the August 22 in Guingamp (Côtes-d'Armor) for the annual festival of Saint-Loup. At the end of the day, the old caravan is deployed on a new site.
“It serves as a traveling stage for musicians, it is equipped with microphones and lights (...). We settle in at the end of the afternoon and it usually lasts until 11 p.m. We have time to catch up, ”
jokes the director of Kenleur.
Each evening is different: concert, costume parades, entertainment, but also Breton dance or embroidery workshops.
They are organized with local associations, circles or bagadou (united within their own federation, Sonerion, with around 10,000 musicians).
“We have at least 300 people every night.
People are smiling, and we are extremely happy with this reunion, ”
says Mathieu Lamour.
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Usually, the life of circles and bagadou like traditional singers, is punctuated by gatherings, trainings and competitions throughout the year, often attended by a large audience. Without counting of course the summer festivals, in reduced format, or even deleted, since the spring of 2020. So many events, managed since the start of the pandemic, without contact with the public.
“We had to adapt, reinvent ourselves,
” comments the head of this cultural federation, whose creativity is often underestimated.
“We are happy to help restart this cultural dynamic”
through this traveling festival which employs an average of three intermittents per evening, underlines Mathieu Lamour. The
“Kenleur Tour”
is financed in equal parts in self-financing, by the Brittany region and,
“for the first time”
, by the Drac (Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs, Ministry of Culture).
