2012 Masquerade Balls in Eureka Springs

Eureka Gras Masquerade Balls

Always a sell out!

The Hookers and Jokers Ball on Thursday, February 17^th at the Inn of the Ozarks Convention Center is renown for its pageantry as the Royal Court kicks into high gear with a mini indoors parade followed by costume contests that bring the house down.

The Grand Toast at the Coronation Ball on Friday, February 18^th in the Crescent Hotel Ballroom is a Mardi Gras tradition that is hundreds of years old. Following the entrance of the newly anointed King and Queen and the former Kings and Queens, all glasses are raised in a Grand Toast that is followed by the Grand Promenade circling the Ballroom floor which ecstatically blossoms into the Royal Second Line and then the Dance of Protocol.

The Beaux Arts Ball on Saturday, February 19^th in the Basin Park Hotel’s Barefoot Ballroom is a combination of artists, locals and tourists who learn to mingle and do the Second Line to Jazz and Blues. The King and Queen of 2012 make the Grand Entrance to great applause.

The Cajun King Cake Ball at the St. ‘Lizbeth Parish Hall is a new and wonderful tradition of masqueraders who dance the night away but at midnight – herald in the coming of the season of Lent.

Info at Krazo@Ureeka.Org and at www.Krazo.Ureeka.Org

Krewe of Proteus

My favorite tale of Proteus though, occurred in 1890. Due to financial hardship, Comus had been unable to stage a parade for a few years. In this interruption in Comus’s parading, Proteus and his krewe had claimed Carnival night as their own. When Comus return to parading in the 1890 season, Proteus refused to yield the night back to Comus.

Both Krewes set out on their routes that evening, doomed to cross paths. The location where the two Captains, each leading his krewe on horseback, met in opposition, could not have been more conspicuous; they met at the intersection of Bourbon and Canal. Each Captain refused to yield, cursing the other to stand aside. When the argument reached such a heated point where it seem violence was inevitable a man from the crowd (rumored to be a member of both organization, abstaining from both parades as he saw such an incident inevitable) grabbed each of the horses by the bridle and told the captains something. No one is entirely sure what exactly he said, but the Captain of Proteus stood aside, allowed Comus to pass, and solidified Comus’s place as the senior krewe for the rest of Carnival history