Lafayette, LA

Lafayette, Louisiana — fixed by its venue, the Heymann Performing Arts Center — is the capital of Acadiana, the francophone heartland that the Cajuns built after their expulsion from Canada in 1755, the tragedy Longfellow told in Evangeline. Their descendants made this prairie-and-bayou country the most distinctive cultural region in the United States: French is still spoken and sung, the food — boudin, étouffée, gumbo — is a civic religion, and the music never stopped. Cajun fiddle-and-accordion dance music and its Black Creole cousin zydeco both live here not as heritage displays but as Saturday-night fact, in dance halls where three generations two-step together.

The city celebrates itself accordingly: Festival International de Louisiane, held downtown each April, is the largest francophone music festival in the United States, drawing artists from across the French-speaking world, and Festivals Acadiens et Créoles each autumn belongs to the home musicians. The Heymann Center, the municipal performing-arts hall documented in this archive, carries the formal season — symphony, opera and touring productions — for a city that may possess more working musicians per capita than any of its size in America. The University of Louisiana adds its campus life. Lafayette's motto could be its dinner-table blessing: laissez les bons temps rouler.