Hey Pocky Way: A Mardi Gras Indian Jazz Fest Guide | Offbeat

If you go to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, you gotta go see the Mardi Gras Indians at the Heritage Stage. It’s the perfect place to hear this transcendent music, see the awesome beauty of full-suited Indians coming in their magnificent colors and become swept up in it.

NEW ORLEANS, LA-APRIL 29: Big Chief Monk Boudreaux performs with 101 Runners at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, LA on April 29, 2012. (Photo by Clayton Call/Redferns).

The performances on the Heritage Stage are unusual in that they are abstracted, formal presentations of the Indians as a stage show rather than the community interactive street parades that the Indians engage in on Mardi Gras Day, St. Joseph’s Day and Super Sunday. During Jazz Fest, there are also Indian parades each day on the grounds of the fest that are closer to what goes down at Mardi Gras on the streets of the city. Fest goers are encouraged to second line along with those parades.

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