Breton is a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Brittany.
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.
The Celtic circles created before the Second World War had very wide cultural objectives, including the literature, the theater, the songs, the choral singing, the plastic arts and the learning and the practice of the Breton language, but not always the music and the dance of Brittany. However, those after 1945 generally restricted their scope and concern themselves with collecting, studying, transmitting and disseminating arts and the popular traditions in Brittany, in particular the Breton dances by occurring on stage with amateur status: performances and compositions created will go in this direction.
Since the early 1970s, Brittany has experienced a tremendous revival of its folk music. Along with flourishing traditional forms such as the bombard-binou pair and fest-noz ensembles incorporating other additional instruments, it has also branched out into numerous subgenres.
Breton dance is a group of traditional dance forms originating in Brittany, the Celtic region of France. The dance has experienced a reappropriation in the late 1950s, with the development of the Celtic Circles and Fest Noz.
There are between 200 and 300, most of which are located in Brittany, but there are also many in cities where Breton communities are found in France, Guadeloupe, New York City, and Beijing. There are two large federations, who organize competitions, Kendalc'h and War'l Leur. The circles and festival of the city of Quimper are very well known.
Brittany is a cultural region in the northwest of France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period of Roman occupation. It became an independent kingdom and then a duchy before being united with the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province governed as if it were a separate nation under the crown.
Guadeloupe is an insular region of France located in the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. Administratively, it is an overseas region consisting of a single overseas department. With a land area of 1,628 square kilometres and an estimated population of 400,132 as of January 2015, it is the largest and most populous European Union territory in North America.
The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States and in the U.S. state of New York. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerably to include everything from "trad" (traditional) music to a wide range of hybrids.
Brittany is one of the 18 regions of France. It is named after the historic and geographic region of Brittany, of which it constitutes 80%. The capital is Rennes. Bathed by the English Channel to the north and the Bay of Biscay to the south, it is located in the West of France, bordering the Normandy and Pays de la Loire regions. Bro Gozh ma Zadoù is the anthem of Brittany. It is sung to the same tune as that of the national anthem of Wales, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, and has similar words. As a region of France, Brittany has a Regional Council, which was most recently elected in 2015.
Quimper is a commune and capital of the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.
Gallo is a regional language of France. It is not as commonly spoken as it once was, as the standard form of French now predominates. Gallo is classified as one of the Oïl languages.
Alan Stivell is a Breton and Celtic musician and singer, recording artist, and master of the Celtic harp. From the early 1970s, he revived global interest in the Celtic harp and Celtic music as part of world music. As a Bagpiper and bombard player, he modernized traditional Breton music and singing in the Breton language. He was the precursor of Celtic rock. He is inspired by the union of the Celtic cultures and is a staunch defender of the Breton culture as Eurominority.
Pan-Celticism, also known as Celticism or Celtic nationalism is a political, social and cultural movement advocating solidarity and cooperation between Celtic nations and the modern Celts in North-Western Europe. Some pan-Celtic organisations advocate the Celtic nations seceding from the United Kingdom and France and forming their own separate federal state together, while others simply advocate very close cooperation between independent sovereign Celtic nations, in the form of Irish nationalism, Scottish nationalism, Welsh nationalism, Breton nationalism, Cornish nationalism and Manx nationalism.
Breton nationalism is the nationalism of the historical province of Brittany in France. Brittany is considered to be one of the six Celtic nations.
The Bretons are a Celtic ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brittonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain, particularly Cornwall and Devon, mostly during the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. They migrated in waves from the 3rd to 9th century into Armorica, which was subsequently named Brittany after them.
The Festival Interceltique de Lorient (French), Gouelioù Etrekeltiek An Oriant (Breton) or Inter-Celtic Festival of Lorient in English, is an annual Celtic festival, located in the city of Lorient, Brittany, France. It was founded in 1971 by Polig Montjarret.
Bleimor, more fully Urz Skaouted Bleimor, was a Breton Scouting organization, taken from the pseudonym used by Breton poet Jean-Pierre Calloc'h, who died during World War I.
AberFest is a Celtic cultural festival celebrating all things Cornish and Breton that takes place every second year in Cornwall, UK, around Easter. The AberFest Festival alternates with the Breizh – Kernow Festival which is held in Brandivy or Bignan in Brittany, alternating between those two Breton locations.
Perig (Pierre) Géraud-Keraod was one of the founders of the Bleimor Scouting movement in 1946, and later founder of the Scouts d'Europe.
The Bleuniadur Ensemble is a Breton ballet of music and dance, founded in Saint-Pol-de-Léon in 1978. Bleuniadur means "blossom" in the Breton language. The word exactly describes the dynamic movement of the flower when it opens ("flowering").
Youenn Gwernig was a Breton-American poet, writer and singer. He was a painter, sculptor and a TV presenter on the French channel France 3.
Kevrenn Alre is a group of music and dance of Breton traditional inspiration, created in 1951, by railroad employees of the marshalling yard of Auray.
Kendalc'h, is a confederacy of Celtic circles formed late 1950 in Quimper (Brittany). Kendalc'h promotes the Breton culture by means of the popular arts, based on eight radiuses of action: dance, costume, stage, street, youth, formation, music and publishing. It counts 180 Breton associations today, approximately 13,000 members, working in the domains of the Breton dance and the choral singing in Breton language. The other confederacy of Circles in Brittany is War'l Leur.
War'l Leur is a confederacy of Celtic circles established in late 1967. Other confederacy in Brittany is Kendalc'h. The association gathers a large number of groups of Breton traditional dance which propose, in particular in summer, shows and animations throughout the Brittany region but also elsewhere in France, Europe and abroad.
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