3 minute read
Patti Clare Interview……………………….……………………………………………………………………Page
by TheStag.
FEATURE Mardi Gras
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Mardi Gras may be unfamiliar to some of you, but it is a widely celebrated holiday in many dif-
ferent parts of the world! You may be wonder ing, what is Mardi Gras? Mardi Gras is a tradition that dates back hundreds of years and is held as a prelude to Lent. ‘Mardi’ is the French word for Tuesday, and ‘gras’ means ‘fat’. In France, the day before Ash Wednesday came to be known as Mardi Gras or ‘Fat Tuesday’. Traditionally, in the days leading up to Lent, merrymakers would binge on all the rich, fatty foods including meat, eggs, milk, and cheese that remained in their homes in anticipation of several weeks of eating only fish and different types of fasting over Lent.
New Orleans, Louisiana, is one of the cities where Mardi Gras is most widely celebrated. The first American Mardi Gras took place on the 3rd of March 1699, when French explorers, Pierre Le Moyne d’lberville and Sieur de Bienville, landed near present day New Orleans. They held a small celebration and dubbed their landing spot Point du Mardi Gras. In the decades that followed, New Orleans and other French settlements began marking the holiday with street parties, masked balls, and lavish dinners. Louisiana is the only state in which Mardi Gras is a legal holiday. However, elaborate carnival festivities draw crowds in other parts of the United States during the Mardi Gras season as well, including Alabama and Mississippi. Mardi Gras Krewes are organizations which work all year to plan out the balls and parades for the holiday. Krewes date all the way back to the midnineteenth century when the first parades started rolling the streets of New Orleans. Probably one of the most well known Mardi Gras traditions is the bead tossing or “throws” as we call them. Beads have been passed out since the 1920s when a few Krewes began handing out tiny trinkets to parade followers.
Another tradition of Mardi Gras is the delicious ‘king cake’. Traditionally, a New Orleans king cake is an oval-shaped coffee cake, braided and covered in icing and sugar the colour of Mardi Gras: purple, green and gold. A small plastic baby accompanies each king cake. (Due to choking hazards, most king cakes now come with the baby on the outside, allowing the buyer to place it inside of the cake) King cake custom demands that whoever cuts the slice of cake that has the baby in it is king for the day — and also has to purchase the next king cake. At the centre of the Mardi Gras celebration is the parade float. Floats come in large sizes and are outfitted with elaborate decorations.
HOUSE CONCERT REVIEW Pennel House Concert
The whole of Pennel House, including all years, participated in their house concert on the 5th of
February, 2022. Each year per for med either a unique routine, dance, song, music video, or played an instrument, beginning with the younger years then moving to the older years as the night went on. Freddie Ferro provides a greater insight into the concert with more information of what was performed and behind the scenes action:
“Pennell held their annual house review earlier in the term, with Gary Gao and Oriol Chazarra leading us through the evening. The Year 9s started the event with a rendition of The Three Little Pigs with which they also won the inter-house drama competition. The Year 11s’ stereotypes video was very amusing, along with the Year 13s’ trip to Tesco video. There were also several solo performances, including Sam Sanders on the guitar, James Yee on the violin, Steven He with a performance of the traditional Chinese flute, Victor Lam on the piano and
Konstantin Miller with the accordion, all of which were very impressive. The Year 10s performed a synchronised version of S wan Lake, whilst the Year 12s provided us with some excellent moves on the dance floor. The Year 13 leavers’ video gave us some extraordinary before and after photos, with the night being wrapped up by a performance of the house song, which secured Pennell second place in the boys category in the inter-house singing competition. “It is safe to say that it was a very successful night, with both audience members and performers really enjoying the event.”
