UNO Documentary: Krewe de Lune

[Full transcription of Morgan Embleton]

Krewe de Lune started 10 years ago. It is really the brain child of our founding members Travis Cleaver, Molly Reid, and Demetria Cruso. They were on a road trip to go camping, and they had wanted to make something like this. They brainstormed it, came up with the name Krewe de Lune, and it moved forward from there. 

We really start planning in August when we start putting together a schedule, looking at themes, voting on the themes, and then we move into a process where we are meeting twice a week or sometimes more to lay the foundation and begin building our floats, our puppets, and the treatments for SpaceBall. That progresses from October up until Mardi Gras. 

Krewe de Lune has a lot of subcommittees. The largest ones we have are the Cosmonaughties, the Revelers, the Satellites, our design team, and we also have our build team. Each division has its own thing. The Revelers make the puppets that you see in the parades. Design puts together the treatments for SpaceBall, the Cosmonaughties are our dance team, and the build team is responsible for our large-scale things, like our floats and our trikes. Our Staellite Team are our protectors. They make sure the Cosmonaughties are safe as they go through the parade. They make sure the Revelers are safe, and they make sure that we stay hydrated and are having a good time. They are our backbone. 

Krewe de Lune and Star-Steppin Cosmonaughties (photo by: Bryce Ell )

[Full transcription of Taylor Marshall and Brooke Perry]

I’m Taylor Marshall, and I’m the co-PR officer for the Cosmonaughties. And I’m Brooke Perry, the co-PR officer for the Cosmonaughties. The Star-Stepping Cosmonaughties are the official dance team for Krewe de Lune, and a bad ass dance team. Coed. 

We have a dance committee that comes up with our dances, and then we start practicing in September. We practice once a week. Half of our practices are inside in a studio space where we finetune our dances. Closer to Mardi Gras we move outside to get a feel for marching, marching in formation, taking corners, getting cues, dancing with our Revelers, and working with the whole flow of show in preparation for the parades. 

[Full transcription of Morgan Embelton]

The SpaceBall is our annual party. It actually started 10 years ago in a backyard, and now it’s grown to be over 2,000 people. It’s put on by our SpaceBall Team, our design team, and the Krewe at large to help make our treatments and transform a venue that is normal into a quirky, weird space. 

SpaceBall feels like a space in Mardi Gras where people can let their costumes run wild. We try to make it really inclusive but also make sure that it’s weird and aesthetically amazing and beautiful. It’s an amazing party thrown with 2,000 people. 

The Krewe has changed in a lot of ways. We’ve gotten bigger and added new elements to the Krewe. After five years, the Revelers were born. That’s our team for puppets, and it’s the part of the parade that aren’t the dancers or Satellites, but they bring all this energy. We’ve also added additional volunteering requirements to emphasize reaching out into the community. 

Our Krewe has been around for 10 years now, and that’s a significant milestone. I think we’d like to look back and see future generations of Lunes, who we call Cratertots, really start to take over and transform this Krewe into the future. 

We are in two of the Uptown parades, historically Pygmalion (February 3) and Nyx (February 8). We also have the SpaceBall on Friday, February 9. Those are our big events we’ll have coming up soon.