A Taste of Southern Comfort : Once a month, Cajun fans gather in Culver City for good times, Gumbo and plenty of toe-tapping music

A man in his 60s plays an accordion and sings in fluent French. In front of him, a tall guy named Stretch leads his equally statuesque partner through a series of dips and twirls, while a stunning brunette dances with an unkempt stranger twice her age. Behind them, a group of people devour large bowls of homemade gumbo. All this in a building next to a Hare Krishna temple.

What is going on here? In the words of rock singer David Byrne, this ain’t no disco.

“This dance is like going home,” says Genni Wallace, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian from North Carolina and one of the regulars. “It’s the elixir of life. Your heart will keep beating after they put you in the ground.”

The object of this homespun hyperbole is the Cajun Dance in Culver City, held at the Culver City Masonic Temple the first Friday of every month. Residents and out-of-towners become gumbo-fueled dervishes to the two-stepping melodies of the Louisiana Cajun Trio, a group that includes two renowned old-time Cajun musicians, accordionist Wilfred Latour and fiddler Edgar Le Day. Now in its fourth year, the Cajun Dance transforms this small Westside dance hall into Southwest Louisiana, giving L.A. residents a rare opportunity to go beyond blackened seafood and experience authentic backwoods Louisiana culture.

“The unique thing about this dance is the special tension in the music,” says Carolyn Russell, 54, the organizer of the dance and the third member of the Trio. “It has a special dissonance that appeals to people. It’s raw.”

Russell became active on the local dance scene after becoming involved with the California Dance Cooperative, a nonprofit organization that oversees the Cajun Dance and several English country-style dances (known as contra) in the Los Angeles area.

Like all the Co-op affairs, the Cajun Dance provides free dance instruction, doesn’t serve alcohol and costs $4. Though the English dances are more frequent and more popular, Russell says, the Cajun Dance draws an average of 60 to 80 people--and the number is growing. Those who attend seem to have an enduring passion for it.

One of the more dedicated dance regulars is Lisa Richardson, 26, a major in ethnic music at UCLA. Last year, Richardson saw a flyer for the dance and took a bus from campus to the Masonic Temple. The result was an obsession not only for the music, but for the entire Cajun culture.

“It was something totally different,” recalls Richardson. “I ended up going to Southwest Louisiana for the summer.” There she studied the music and the culture, and fell in love with a Cajun. Since her return to Westwood, she says, she has never missed a dance.

The Louisiana Cajun Trio formed 3 years ago after guitarist Russell met Le Day and Latour. They grew up together in French-speaking Basile, La., but didn’t become musical partners until Latour moved to Southern California in 1984. Both retired now, they team up with Russell for parties and special engagements, playing either their 1930s-style French Cajun music or the resurgent zydeco, a more upbeat, electrified type of Cajun music made popular in recent years by Queen Ida.

Russell says Le Day, 64, and Latour are purists, two of the last musicians who perform the older Cajun songs. “Edgar is one of only a few fiddlers in the world who can play this style of music,” she says.

Though strong men may flee at the sight of an accordion, in the skillful hands of Latour, it’s a haunting, lively instrument. A quiet man who speaks like a Cajun Dexter Gordon, Latour first picked up the accordion at age 7, and 60 years later he shows remarkable stamina, singing his bluesy French vocals during the Trio’s two lengthy sets--2 straight hours, a break, then another 1 1/2 hours.

Latour is the designated leader of the group, where he applies his rare talent for leading a dance. “Wilfred has an unerring sense about dancers,” Russell explains. “He can read the dance floor like nobody I’ve ever seen. He can shake people up when he has to.”

So can Latour’s wife, Elvina, simply by serving her potent sausage-chicken-shrimp gumbo. Elvina spends 2 hours the day of every dance cooking 5 to 6 gallons of her own special recipe at the Latours’ Lynwood home, then transporting it to Culver City, where it sells for $3 a bowl. She spends the duration of the dance in the kitchen, which is fine with her. “I’ve had my share of dancing,” she says.

The gumbo is served all night long, starting at 6:30, as hungry hoofers begin filing into the hall. The music won’t start until 7:30, when the Trio performs their music in spurts, to give the dance instructors time to turn the roomful of two-left-footers into Cajun stompers. Doing the honors are Randall and Andrea Brown, a married couple who met at a Cajun dance.

“We teach a Texas swing, my generation’s style of dance,” says Randall, 36, a New Orleans native. “It’s very aerobic, very active. There’s no book on it, so I can’t tell you you’re doing it wrong.”

The Browns try their hardest to get the crowd to mimic their best moves, and though the regulars appear to have mastered the steps, the neophytes are hesitant. Despite their enthusiasm, most of the dancers are no threat to the Astaire-Rogers legacy, but to Brown that’s precisely the point. “It’s real informal here,” he says. “I think anybody can get out here and do it.”

Most people attending are between 25 and 55 years old, and most of these are in their mid-30s, Russell says. Most come as couples--about one-third of the crowd is single--but none can resist doing some kind of gyration on the perfect-for-dancing hardwood floors of the Masonic Temple. Only a few stay on the chairs along the walls or sit at one of the tables near the gumbo.

This is also an uninhibited crowd eager to display its fashion dexterity, with outfits ranging from embroidered square-dance ensembles to thrift-store chic. “Check out that ‘50s-style skirt with the simulated rhinestone cucumbers,” deadpans Katherine Croshier, a clothes designer from Silver Lake. “Isn’t it inspiring?”

Croshier is a Hungarian dancing enthusiast who is at the Cajun dance for the first time on the recommendation of a friend. At first, she isn’t sure she belongs. “It looks like a bunch of old hippies and people from the Midwest, but they look like they’re having a good time.”

Halfway through the first set, as more people trickle in, the Trio is joined on stage by a tall, lanky man who begins scraping rhythmically on an ancient washboard. He is Gene Latour, no relation to Wilfred, but “an honorary cousin of the band,” Russell says. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Latour, 65, says he has no living family, but has found a home at the dance. “They’ve adopted me,” he asserts, between sips of gumbo. “I’m a genuine imitation Cajun.”

Feeling at home at this dance is a commonly expressed sentiment. That includes many of the singles, who say they are uncomfortable at noisy bars where they are pressured to dance with questionable characters. Here the only pressure is when a clumsy dancer steps on a partner’s foot.

“It’s an old-fashioned way to meet people,” says Croshier, 36, who started going to ethnic dances when she was about to leave her husband. “It’s not a meat market. I’ll even dance with the geeks here.”

After a couple of hours, it is difficult to distinguish between those who arrived together and those who just met. One couple dancing close, Nancy and Garth, have only been acquainted for a few moments.

“I just moved to L.A. and came here alone,” says Nancy, who is in the Folklore Department at UCLA. “I’ll be back.”

Garth has been attending the dance for a couple of years and was showing Nancy how it’s done. “I learned to dance from Andrea Brown, with only one dance. Next thing I knew, I was hooked.”

Some regulars at the dance are less interested in the footwork than in the catharsis they feel from the bluesy Cajun chords. Genni Wallace, 41, who lives in Venice, where she teaches women the art of American Indian ceremony, or “the goddess/woman thing” as she calls it, thinks the event is an important experience for her students.

“I bring all my womankinds here,” she says. “This dancing is a healing.” True to her word, Wallace has brought a few women, this evening, most of of whom are first-timers. By the end of the night they agree with their mentor that the Cajun dance is part entertainment, part therapy. “It becomes a community feeling,” Wallace adds.

Lisa Richardson credits the music for conjuring up an almost hypnotic environment. “The music creates the atmosphere,” she says. “It’s that way in Louisiana, and it’s that way here. I can’t imagine this special feeling in a place without this music.”

Or as Edgar Le Day puts it, “If I don’t make your feet move, I ain’t reached you.”

The Cajun Dance in Culver City is held the first Friday of every month at the Culver City Masonic Temple at 9635 Venice Blvd., Culver City. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Cost is $4.