Lakota Native American, Rueben Fasthorse of Standing Rock, demonstrates a buffalo dance in the encampment area. Photo: Angela Buccieri O'Donnell

Old Crossing Arts Festival and Chautauqua by AFRAN

A four-day celebration of dance, music, food, and art in Huot, Minnesota, at the historic meeting place at Old Crossing and Treaty Park, near Red Lake Falls in northwestern Minnesota. The site was used during the era of western exploration by Indian and French traders. The Festival and Chautauqua is presented by AFRAN (Association of the French of the North), whose mission in the Red River Valley of the North is to create an understanding of the world's French heritage through the arts and humanities. AFRAN sponsors the annual Chautauqua and French Festival to encourage and introduce a historic and multicultural approach to the arts and humanities, while interpreting the role French presence has placed in the Middle West, and, in particular, northwestern Minnesota.

Activities include music and dance, a French Festival Bake-Off, Encampments led by humanities scholars, strolling minstrels, art show, the sale of souvenirs and craft items, and workshops in story-telling, writing, landscape painting, ceramics, puppetry, beadwork, and flute-making.

Originally submitted by: Collin C. Peterson, Representative (7th District).

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