Krewe of Okeanos
Location: Uptown New Orleans
Date: February 14, 2010
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Year Founded: 1949
Theme: Would you Be Mine?
Krewe Website: www.kreweofokeanos.org
On July 27th 1949 a group of downtown merchants got together to form a Carnival Organization. The organization was called Okeanos and the Charter was in the name The Sonaeko Club, Inc.
the Krewe of Okeanos Mythology
The Greek God of Rivers, Okeanos, son of Ouranos and Gaia, was the begetter of the rivers of the earth. In 1950 the vigorous Okeanos directed the course of his youthful company of crewman through tranquil currents of peaceful waters and plunged them into the initial spectacle as apprentices of Carnival maasquerades.
When the masked dancers retired to the watery habitats, their leader commanded them to return to present a day light procession, through a down-town route in honor of the Father of Waters.
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.
