Second Line Sneaker Ball

The second line parade is a funerary mainstay everyone should have stipulated in their wills, because if “you’re gonna go out, go out with a party”.

In this New Orleans, African American funeral tradition, a brass band plays a mournful dirge while following the casket and leading mourners to the cemetery. After the burial, the band plays upbeat jazz in a celebration of the dearly departed’s life on Earth. Somewhere along the way, people figured out that this musical party was so much fun that it became a part of nearly every celebration.

This bayou-rific blast with the Karamu House’s inaugural Second Line Parade and Sneaker Ball took place on August 3, 2019 at Lake View Cemetery in celebration of the theater’s glorious past, dynamic present and exciting future.