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For 50 years now, the Occitan Cultural Center of Albigeois has organized the Saint John festival (Janada in oc) in Albi.
A gigantic fire will crackle on June 29 at 10 p.m., Place Sainte-Cécile. Co-organized with the French-Occitan bilingual schools of Albi and to celebrate this fiftieth anniversary, two exceptional days of celebration are offered to the children of these schools and to the Albigensians on June 28 and 29.
From the beginning, the idea of the Occitan Cultural Center of Albigeois was to get closer to a festival given in Albi in 1492. That year all the cities of the Kingdom celebrated the birth of the Dauphin, Charles-Orland, son of King Charles VIII and Anne of Brittany.
This text specifies all the festivities offered to the Albigensians, with strolls (ressega), costumes and music, meals, processions. The Tarn Conservatory of Music and Dance, the Cordais group La Talvera, the Bufarèls de Castres, the Albigensian group BrindAir’Oc and the Aveyron groups Charpentier/Delclaux and M’Braia will make our Occitan culture resonate in the streets and squares of Albigensian .
All draw from the popular Occitan repertoire an energy that triggers the dance machine, songs or farandoles in a simple, friendly, cheerful atmosphere, inviting all audiences to participate. Traditional instruments will be in the spotlight such as the bagpipe of the Montagne Noire, made of goatskin (craba in Occitan) and the oboe of the Lacaune mountains (graile in Occitan). As soon as the children carrying torches arrive on the Place Ste Cécile, the consuls, as usual, will launch their famous “que la Janada s’abrande” (may St. John ignite) and everyone, young and old, will surround the fire in a joyful, wild round.
