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Yaouank is the festival of modern breton and celtic music, every year in Rennes, in November. Even very current music! Over a basis of traditional Breton music still much appreciated during fest-noz (the public especially comes to dance to these Breton concerts), appear various motives of rock, jazz, electro, punk, oriental or african music. One of the goals of this festival born in the late 90s was to give a fresh impetus to this music, during fest-noz or concerts in bars. By the way, yaouank means "young" in Breton language.
This music is indeed moving, like the numerous happy and popular Breton dances, always ready to widen the circle to let trainees enter. To give an idea of the variety of the repertoire of Breton dances: gavottes, an dro, ridées, plinn, fisel, laridé, ronde, hanter dro... The festival achieves its purpose to support a Breton culture which is not a frozen heritage (fest-noz is inscribed on UNESCO world immaterial cultural heritage!).
The festival takes place in mid November over two weeks, in Rennes and a few towns around. As happens every year, the festival finishes with a giant fest-noz, on a Saturday, in the Parc Expo of Rennes - Saint Jacques. This fest-noz usually attracts more than 7000 dancers of all ages and levels, usually the largest fest-noz in Brittany. There is always a beautiful programme for hours of dance : brothers Guichen with Denez Prigent, the duo Hamon Martin, Sonerien Du...
Of course, Yaouank may be a very good opportunity to discover other facets of culture in Rennes.