Interview with Filmmakers Abby Berendt Lavoi and Jeremey Lavoi
Roots of Fire is a documentary about the Cajun Music scene set in the deep South in Lafayette, Louisiana. There will be a sequel at some point. This is part one about the Cajun music era: a form of life, language, and artistic expression that is waning due to the Americanization of South Louisiana.
The state is known for its Cajun food like gumbo and crawfish and its history of voodoo magic with the famous voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. The two-stepping dance halls on Friday nights and the history and language have all but disappeared until Roots of Fire.
Filmmakers Abby Berendt Lavoi and her husband Jeremey Lavoi explore a community of Cajun artists, in some cases descended from Acadian refugees, who are actively embracing their roles as culture bearers preserving a unique musical language. The documentary spotlights their customs and traditions.
This educational documentary would make an excellent addition to academic libraries for music students, particularly for professors who want to include a world music section in their syllabus.
Video Librarian spoke with the filmmakers Abby and Jeremey about the history of Cajun music and what their motive was to bring the waning culture back to Louisiana and beyond.
VL: The language of Cajun music is a mixture of French and what other language?
Jeremey Lavoi: It’s a dialect of French called ‘Cajun French.' There are a lot of things that have made their way into Cajun French. There are tiny bits of different African languages and Spanish, Native American languages, [but] for the most part it’s French. If you grow up speaking the official French language Frejun French, it’s a little different. You can understand Cajun French speakers but because Cajun French has these other parts in it from the Americas, it’s a dialect.
VL: Abby, did you decide to make this documentary to renew the interest and culture in Cajun music in Lafayette, LA, and beyond its borders? Is it being revived now?
Abby Berendt Lavoi: This is a joint project between Jeremey and I. We directed it together—and we came about the idea naturally. Jeremey grew up in Lake Charles, LA which is about an hour away from Lafayette. He grew up with Cajun music in the background, his grandparents listened to it [because] it’s more for older people. And when we were living in San Francisco—that’s where we met—we were looking to do a documentary story. We were on vacation in Colorado—which is where I’m from—and we got an Oxford Americana magazine and there was a Louisiana music edition.
Jeremey Lavoi: Yes, that was the origin of the documentary. There was a CD with a bunch of different styles of Louisiana music on it, and one of the songs was kind of just a “rock and roll” Cajun French song. We never heard of anything like that. It was like an updated form of Cajun music that was new to us at the time. We went on YouTube and discovered all these younger artists that were performing Cajun music. [They] got all these kids out dancing and got us learning about it and meeting the bands. We knew there was a good documentary story there.
As far as whether there was a point to revitalize it in Lafayette, I would say no. Lafayette has a very healthy Cajun and Zydeco music scene, in general, they could get more younger people getting involved with it but I think of all places, in that specific town, it will probably go on there forever. I think what we hope to do with Roots of Fire is expand the border a little bit; not just to Southern Louisiana but beyond that and share this amazing music and culture that people might not know anything about.
Abby Lavoi: Yeah, that was what really got me. I have never seen anything like that before. I lived in New York and I lived in San Francisco and I go to music shows all the time. You see the band and you just stand there and watch [them] bobbing their heads but in Lafayette you see these young people dancing together and having such a good time. I wanted to share that with people all over the world. So that was one of my drives to make this documentary.