Mardi Gras : New Orleans

From Twelfth Night (6 January) to Mardi Gras, New Orleans lives for her Carnival - a brilliant season of balls, revelry, costuming, and parades. Carnival artist and historian Henri Schindler offers a stunning panorama of Mardi Gras' evolution and its exuberant diversity - the early Creole cavalcades; the torchlit processions of the Mistick Krewe of Comus; the rise of Rex, King of the Carnival; fabulous tableaux balls, Carnival royalty; Storyville and the Baby Dolls; Les Mysterieuses, the first female society; and African-American creations - the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, and Mardi Gras Indians.