A celebration of African-American history The week before
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Millisia White came
back to her native city on a trip for work. She stayed behind to
help her family recover and has been home ever since. There was
something she felt she had to do. "When something you are so
familiar with is threatened to be lost forever, you cling to
what's familiar," said White, who moved back from Atlanta. For
White and her brother, that meant bringing back a century-old
New Orleans practice of masking, or masquerading, which was
nearly vanishing. That year, she founded the New Orleans Society
of Dance and incorporated into the dance company a cultural
legacy series of dance performance that would revive tradition
of the Baby Dolls -- with a modern twist. "We wanted to do
something representing this tradition and what it meant and
symbolize it in some form." The Baby Doll practice started about
1912, when groups of women in New Orleans' red light district
poked fun at society's stereotype