“La Folia” is Portuguese and means folly, though it also suggests “madness”. So, why would anyone choose a name like that? Well, there were actually several reasons. First, and probably the least interesting, is that it is a term of significance in classical music. Since the sixteenth century La Folia has referred to a chord progression so popular that the likes of Vivaldi and Rachmaninoff and a host of great composers have used it.
But even before the popular chord progression, there was an annual event in Portugal called La Folia. It was a raucous festive event at which men and women dressed in strange clothing and behaved in a manner that was seemingly “madness”. There was even a dance associated with this outrageous revelry called the “Morris Dance”. Our business card has a reproduction of a Bruegel painting–The wedding Dance– which suggests how a Morris Dance might have looked.
There was still one other reason for choosing “La Folia”. There is a beautiful book by Kahlil Gibran entitled, “The Madman,” which tells the story of how a great poet discovered his artistic spirit. Returning home one afternoon he found that a thief had broken into his home and stolen his masks. Discovering this he ran into the street and shouted, “Thieves, they’ve stolen my masks.” A women standing on a balcony above him heard this and shouted back, “You’re a madman”, and hearing this, the poet looked up to see the woman, and for the first time he felt the sun on his face, and in that moment he realized he would never again need his masks.