The House of Dance & Feathers joyfully reopens
17th January 2023 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
A large and joyful crowd gathered at The House of Dance & Feathers to celebrate the museum’s reopening on December 6, 2022. They stood and danced on the lawn, side yard and driveway while laughing and reminiscing about their families and adventures in the Lower Ninth Ward, particularly when it came to the Big Nine Social Aid & Pleasure Club and the Mardi Gras Indians.
The museum was founded in 2003 by the late Ronald Lewis, who was the president of the Big Nine Social Aid & Pleasure Club, the Gatekeeper of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang, a masked Indian and a member of the Krewe du Jieux. It had been shuttered since Ronald’s death on April 20, 2020.
“I didn’t even go in there and I didn’t allow anyone else to go in there,” says his wife Charlotte “Minnie” Lewis. Married since 1971, when Minnie was still in high school, she supported her husband in his passion for the New Orleans Black street culture while aware that the museum was totally his endeavor. “I never did run the museum,” she said.
Encouraged and supported by a myriad of people, most notably Rachel Breulin of the Neighborhood Story Project, Minnie, in memory of her husband, has taken the reins in becoming the director of the museum that specializes in memorabilia from social aid and pleasure clubs, Black masking Indians, skeleton gangs and more. African art and artifacts have always been a part of the collection as a reminder of the influence it has had on New Orleans Black culture. New additions include recognizing native Americans.
Very recently Minnie began offering appointment-only tours of the museum.
“If somebody happens to pop up I’m not going to turn them away,” she said, though advises that guests not call or arrive too early in the morning.
The main building that houses the museum now dazzles with its Caribbean hardwood floors provided by the Robinson Lumber Company and the light provided by its unique slanted roof that offers the modest area an open atmosphere. A smaller structure provides space for overflow articles and research documents.
“Me and Rachel worked hard cleaning that building out. After being shut down for two and a half years there was a lot of spiders and critters,” Minnie recalled all too well. “We moved furniture and took everything off the walls and washed them from top to bottom.”
The building itself was once a garage where the couple’s son, Renaldo, used to cut hair. “I got tired of coming home from work and all of the feathers and beads [were] rolling around the house,” said Minnie with her usual good humor. “My house would look like I don’t know what. So I started putting them outside of the house and my husband picked them up and started putting them in the garage. That’s when he started his museum.”
The barbershop sign continues to find a home in the museum though there was no hair cutting emporium there after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Lower Ninth. While evacuated, Ronald Lewis collected newspaper articles about events in New Orleans that are now on display in a small room in the museum called “The Katrina Story.” It was his way of knowing what was going on. “That’s how he kept it alive,” Minnie said.
It’s not surprising that Minnie’s favorite item in the museum is the beaded patch depicting a profile of a native American that she helped create when, as he was a teenager, her son, Rashad, masked alongside his father with the Choctaw Hunters.
“It’s the first patch in the case as you walk in the door,” Minnie said. “I’m really proud of that – Ronald worked on it too – and it’s on the cover of Ronald’s book (that boasts the same name as the museum). When we evacuated for Katrina, Ronald took it and some of the other patches and pictures that were important to him.”
Minnie participated in the Big Nine’s annual parades occasionally riding in a convertible by her husband’s side. “Most of the time I marched – I was such a street person,” she said with a laugh. “I always dressed in whatever color Ronald wanted to dress in,” she added, explaining that as president of the club and not a part of a specific parade division the color of his apparel, and hers, was up to him.
When Ronald reigned as the king of the Krewe du Vieux parade, a wildly fun and raucous Carnival procession, Minnie joined him as queen on the highly decorated float. The yellow and orange headpiece she wore that night is now displayed at the museum as well as a scroll declaring her the queen and a newspaper clipping that captures the two of them enjoying their special evening.
“The name The House of Dance & Feathers was all Ronald,” explained Minnie. It refers, of course, to the hot steppin’ of the social aid and pleasure clubs members and the glorious feathers of the Mardi Gras Indians as they both partake in the traditions of bringing their moves to the streets magnificently attired. Its name shares the spirit of the well-established Tambourine & Fan Social Aid & Pleasure Club.
There is no fee for tours of the museum though Minnie does ask that guests make a donation. The museum is located at 1317 Tupelo Street. For more information or to schedule a tour, call 504-905-6006.
This article originally published in the January 16, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
