Krewe of Iris
Location: Uptown New Orleans
Date: February 18, 2012
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Membership: over 900
Year Founded: 1917
First Parade: 1959
Krewe Website: www.kreweofiris.org
Founded in 1917, the Krewe of Iris is the oldest
and the largest of all female Carnival Krewes in New Orleans.
Named for the Goddess of the Rainbow, Messenger to the Gods,
it maintains a global membership of 900 active riders.
The
organization's inaugural tableau ball was celebrated in
1949 and was the first such event to ever be televised.
First
parading in 1959, the Krewe continues to strictly follow
the traditional Carnival parading customs of wearing
white gloves and full-length Carnival masks.
Our goddess
has been kind to us, to this date the organization has
never cancelled a parade due to inclement weather.
About the DVD The first Mardi Gras in America was celebrated in Mobile, Alabama in 1703. In 2007, it is still racially segregated. Filmmaker Margaret Brown (Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt), herself a daughter of Mobile, escorts us into the parallel hearts of the city s two carnivals. With unprecedented access, she traces the exotic world of secret mystic societies and centuries-old traditions and pageantry; diamond-encrusted crowns, voluminous, hand-sewn gowns, surreal masks and enormous paper mache floats. Against this opulent backdrop, she uncovers a tangled web of historical violence and power dynamics, elusive forces that keep this hallowed tradition organized along enduring color lines.
