This blog was initially prompted by a lengthy exchange on Facebook last year between a well-known UK-based storyteller and those who follow him lamenting what was framed as the middle-class nature of storytelling in England and, in particular, the demographic represented by those attending storytelling festivals. As part of this discussion, some throwaway (but quite forceful) points were made about the opening events at such festivals, including a reference to them being ‘faux ceremonies’. My own experience of storytelling festival opening ceremonies is limited to those at Festival at The Edge or FaTE (www.festivalattheedge.org), which I have been attending since 2017, and have found them to be a mixture of entertaining, bemusing and (occasionally) difficult. The exchange on Facebook prompted me to put some thoughts down on paper, but the nature of this year’s opening ceremony at FaTE provided a fresh impetus to get those thoughts in order and write a blog about the nature of ceremony in relation to storytelling festivals and, at the same time, return to the academic fields of ritual and performance studies (fields which were the focus of research in my younger days). I hope that this entry will provide a useful starting point for conversations about opening ceremonies such as those at FaTE but, if not, it has at least provided an excuse to exercise parts of my brain which have been dormant for some time. Whilst I do have quite strong feelings about the debate, I will leave others to continue the discussion on class and storytelling. I will limit myself to considering how and why words and/or actions that are ceremonial might be deployed. Before going any further, I need to say that, while my discussion centres on the ceremonies at FaTE, I am in no doubt that similar approaches have been taken at other festivals (and anecdotal evidence of the ceremonies at one of those festivals suggests that it would need a considerably longer blog than this one to provide an adequate critique).
I have avoided identifying anyone in this blog, as it is the ideas that I want to interrogate rather than individuals. At the time of writing, the posts on which I have drawn are marked as public - accessible to anyone with a Facebook account - and so I am not repeating privileged information. Also, I need to acknowledge that the comments made during these exchanges about festival opening ceremonies were both contextualised by a wider discussion and part of a casual online conversation, rather than being a developed critique of such events.
Defining Ceremony
While there is no reason that either those who create opening ceremonies for storytelling festivals, or those who contributed to the Facebook discussion of them, should be expected to define their terms, I think it is important to clarify what I mean by the word ‘ceremony’ and the closely related term ‘ritual’, as understanding how these forms of social performance differ will be essential for the discussion that follows.
In everyday conversation, we may jump between the terms ‘ceremony’ and ‘ritual’ as synonyms and, if either of these words comes up in conversation, most of us will have some idea of what the person speaking is talking about. However, I want to suggest that there is a conceptual difference between ceremony and ritual, which becomes important when trying to understand the content and purpose of such events.
Although, as social performances, ceremony and ritual can form part of the same event (and often overlap in appearance), for the purposes of this discussion I will use Victor Turner’s distinction that ‘Ceremony indicates, ritual transforms…’ (Turner 1982: 80). In other words, ceremony always refers to something that the organisers or leaders of the event want to confirm or celebrate, while ritual (with its religious connotations) is transformative (Turner 1987: 49).
Throughout this blog, I am going to use Olympic opening ceremonies and graduation ceremonies, (both of which are established and regularly performed social events) to provide reference points for the discussion of ceremony in general and festival opening ceremonies in particular. I have chosen these two forms of social performance because both of them are indicative and celebratory rather than transformative. Attendance at a graduation ceremony doesn’t confer a degree (many graduates do not attend the ceremony but are still awarded their qualifications); similarly, the Olympic opening ceremony celebrates the games and their location and at the same time indicates that the games are underway (competition has already begun by the time that the ceremony commences) – in other words, the Olympic opening ceremony does not effect the start of the games. Comparing these events to Turner’s definitions of ‘ceremony’ and ‘ritual’, they clearly fall within the parameters of the former rather than the latter. In the same way, in my experience at least, storytelling festival openings neither bring about nor mark the festival’s commencement (with performances having been underway for some time by the hour of the opening ceremony). Rather, they indicate that the festival is underway and celebrate that it is happening. The importance of these distinctions between ceremony and ritual will hopefully become clear as the discussion unfolds below.
Differentiating between real and ‘faux’ ceremonies
As I said in the introduction, one of the prompts to writing this blog was the use of the word ‘faux’ to describe the ceremonies of some storytelling festivals. The phrase ‘faux ceremonies’ was not used in a way that was specific to any particular festival, but I will use my experiences of FaTE to unpick what might make a ceremony ‘faux’, rather than real.
The word ‘faux’ has clear connotations of fakery, deception, and pretence. Using this word implies that people are being deceived by the labelling of these events as ceremonies. I would argue, however, that if we start from Turner’s position that a ceremony indicates, confirms or celebrates an aspect of social life, then the opening ceremonies of storytelling festivals are no more faux than their equivalents at the Olympic Games. However, simply because these performances fulfil the definition of ceremony, and therefore should not be considered as ‘faux’, this does not necessarily imply that they are fulfilling the role of ceremony effectively.
If storytelling opening ceremonies fulfil our technical definition of ceremony, then, perhaps ‘faux’ could be appropriately applied to aspects of those ceremonies, rather than the ceremonies in and of themselves. For instance, maybe ‘faux’ refers to the insistence on novelty at these events, and the rejection of repeated patterns of ceremonial (which would then build a tradition). Alternatively, ‘faux’ may simply be a critique that suggests that the ceremonial aspects of these events fail to live up to something that might be thought of as significant. Whatever the case, unpicking the nature of these events might help us understand what is going on and why these ceremonies can draw the kind of opprobrium heaped on them by the participants in the online discussion which prompted this blog.
Returning to graduation ceremonies, one of our reference points, I have regularly had to spend two hours applauding the academic achievements of young graduates processing across the stage of a public building (I am the one in red, about to sit down, in the back row of the photo above of the 2019 University of Roehampton Graduation Ceremony). Such graduation ceremonies have fairly regular patterns: processional entrance, speeches, the awarding of honorary degrees, the reading of the names of the graduates present, the formal greeting of those graduates by the university vice-chancellor or their representative, and the final procession out of the space. To be sure, there are sometimes innovative elements such as student performances, but the focal point of the ceremony (and the one for which everyone has gathered) is the moment when the name of each graduate is read aloud, and they walk across the stage. Everything else is secondary.
Similarly, Olympic ceremonies, have a pattern in which the guests of honour are received, the host country or city is celebrated (alongside the Olympic movement), the athletes process, the Olympic flame is lit, and the games are declared open. Each ceremony is a unique celebration, and the opening ceremony of the Paris games was certainly innovative, but even here everything led to the lighting of the flame that burned for the duration of the games and the declaration that the games were open, for these were the elements that indicated that the games were underway.
What is perhaps unclear in the opening ceremonies of storytelling festivals, and what may contribute to the judgment of them being ‘faux’, is a lack of focus on that moment or action that marks that the festivals are underway. Someone may say (as in the FaTE opening ceremony this year), ‘I declare the festival open’, but one of the characteristics of ceremonial and ritual behaviour is excess – doing more than is necessary. A graduation could be reduced to graduands gathering in a hall in their everyday clothing to be told as a body by a university official (dressed for work) that they all have their degrees. The opening of the Olympics could be reduced to the President of the International Olympic Committee standing at a microphone and saying, ‘The Olympic Games have started.’ However, ceremony demands ceremonial.
The declaration, indication and celebration of a festival opening needs, then, to have a clear element of ceremonial in order to make it significant: symbolic actions and/or words in order to lift it out of the functionality of ‘I declare the festival open’. However, simply introducing symbolic actions and/or words do not guarantee an aesthetically effective piece of ceremony – and we need to be clear about separating aesthetic judgements, and those judgements concerned with the authenticity (or realness) of the ceremony.
Opening Ceremony Performances: The Cultural Dimension
In addition to symbolic words and/or actions to make the declaration of a festival being underway, there are often performance elements which (I think we can presume) are there to enhance the sense of occasion and heighten emotions towards the festival and what it represents. Both Celine Dion singing ‘Hymne A L'Amour’ beneath the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony and a group of students performing at a graduation ceremony help to create an overall sense of significance and celebration. There is no reason, then, that opening ceremonies of storytelling festivals shouldn’t include such performances. At FaTE these performances have included light processions, a multi-media storytelling/dance set and, most recently, an homage to the film ‘The Wicker Man’.
However, the recent Olympic Opening Ceremony presented an interesting case study in how the choice of performance can become the focus for commentators rather than the overall ceremony and the ceremonial moments themselves. Giving some attention to this will, I hope, help illustrate my critique of the artistic choices made for the most recent FaTE opening ceremony.
To be fair to the creative directors of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, it probably never occurred to them that an homage to classical culture would be the focus of controversy in the way that it was. At one point, a cast of diverse characters sat at, and stood around, a table on which was a feasting platter, complete with a blue skinned and semi-naked figure (see collage below). Assumptions were made both in the media and on social media that this was a mocking allusion to the image of ‘The Last Supper’ by Leonardo da Vinci, and therefore a source of offense to Christians: indeed, even the Vatican objected to the offense caused by the opening ceremony[1].
There was a lot of sneering in the coverage of the reactions of (in particular) American evangelical Christians to this element of the Olympics ceremony and how their complaints demonstrated their ignorance of classical culture. I am rarely an apologist for American evangelical Christianity (indeed, this may be the first time…) but, whilst the vehemence of some of the offense taken did seem somewhat out of proportion to the perceived slight, we need to be careful not to dismiss the way in which they drew a parallel between this performance and Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’. I strongly suspect that it is not only in the USA that a significant number of people would not be aware of the idea of Greek gods feasting together. Indeed, I freely confess that I was not aware of Jan van Bijlert’s 17th Century painting ‘Festival of Gods’ (see collage below) on which the Olympics’ living tableau was apparently based. To assume that everyone watching the ceremony would have those cultural reference points is, at very least, an act of cultural privileging and a refusal to acknowledge the contextual worth of different forms of cultural capital. Without those reference points, those who were offended had gone to the nearest representation stored as part of their own cultural resource, which was Da Vinci’s masterpiece.
I am not, however, absolving those Christians who were offended by the tableau completely. The comparison with The Last Supper was made alongside the assumption that a large cultural organisation (such as that responsible for The Olympics Opening Ceremony) would seek to mock one of the world’s major faiths. This is an important point when it comes to keeping the critique I offer of this year’s FaTE opening ceremony in perspective.
I have not seen 'The Wicker Man'. I realise that such an absence in my film viewing may not be common among British people of my age who are interested in folklore, but it does not change that I have not seen it. I am aware that it involves the burning of a large wicker figure, trapped inside which is a human sacrifice, but I suspect that my knowledge probably exceeds more than many people younger than me (even if they too have an interest in folklore).
So, without the cultural reference point of the film, I was left trying to understand what was going on during the ceremony. There was a procession of performers carrying burning torches into a roped-off area. The performers included the MC, a group of people who would function as a form of Greek chorus, masked dancers and musicians, and someone clearly representing a pure sacrifice – a feminine figure wearing a white shift. The majority of the performance was dominated by the masked dancers performing with flaming torches and to traditional instruments. But it is not their performance that needs discussion in relation to the cultural dimension (and no negative connotation was intended in the use of the word ‘dominated’). Anyone who is familiar with traditional English dance will have seen echoes with Morris in the torch-lit dances, and anyone who was unfamiliar would have simply seen people dancing by firelight, but my focus is rather on the presence of the feminine sacrificial character. This person was ‘bound’ to a chair in front of a large wooden effigy in human form (see collage below). With my limited knowledge of ‘The Wicker Man’ I had to assume that this effigy was to be burned, and the person who embodied purity to be sacrificed with it.
I will admit that I continue to be concerned that either no-one in the creative team behind this presentation questioned the appropriateness of using images of human sacrifice in this way or, if they did, their questions were ignored. More than that, the organisers appeared to be happy creating images of female powerlessness. Perhaps those familiar with ‘The Wicker Man’ were making the kinds of connections that I was unable to, but someone needs to have asked the questions, ‘What are people who have not seen the film seeing in this performance? What is seen by those people for whom this film is not part of their cultural capital?’ There needs to be a realisation that, just as in the example from the Paris Olympics, it is through their cultural capital that people interpret such performances.
As with the discussion above of the response of some Christians to the ‘Festival or Gods’ sequence during the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony, there is a danger that an observer who, like me, doesn’t have knowledge of ‘The Wicker Man’ assumes that the intention was to offend. I don’t think that for a moment. But I do think that insufficient thought was given to the material that made up the performance, and the values that were embedded in it. Until this point, I haven’t mentioned the role of the MC, and I will go into more detail in a separate section below (which will draw us back to the opening discussion on the difference between ceremony and ritual at the start of this blog). In relation to the cultural dimension, however, the MC’s words and actions clearly created a Pagan context for the dances, the fire and the sacrificial victim. I am aware enough of ‘The Wicker Man’ to know that this aligns with the themes of the film, but there also appears to have been no thought about how someone who identifies as Pagan might respond to this imagery.
I was concerned enough at the time to seek out the advice of a Pagan public figure who was also present at the FaTE opening ceremony, and they very kindly gave me half an hour of their time to discuss the issues that I had identified. My concern was that (as a practicing Pagan) they would be offended by the portrayal of their spirituality, but they allayed that fear, saying that they weren’t offended because they were used to pantomime representations of Paganism – I think that actual words were ‘People taking the piss’. For me, that was worse than them being offended.
The message of this section, then, is for creative directors of opening ceremonies to step back and ask how they intend to reference issues of faith and spirituality in any performance, and to tread gently and respectfully. And, further, they need to interrogate the cultural references on which their performance(s) rely, and to what extent they are accessible to a broad gathering of people (within the constraints of a community that is brought together by a love of storytelling).
‘Ritual Bleed’
Returning to Turner’s distinction, ‘Ceremony indicates, ritual transforms…’, the next area for consideration is whether a confusion between these two forms of social performance is sometimes a feature of festival opening ceremonies. Indeed, I wonder whether it was a recognition of this confusion (even if it might not be articulated using Turner’s language) that led to the teller complaining on social media of ‘faux ceremonies’. If so, in relation to this aspect of the discussion, I am in agreement with the use of the word ‘faux’, but would refer to ‘faux rituals’ rather than ‘faux ceremonies’.
Again, I am going to critique the opening ceremony of FaTE 2024, but the points made are general and may be applied to any festival opening (and as I have already mentioned, I know of opening ceremonies that have been considerably more problematic than any I have experienced at FaTE). At the start of FaTE’s opening ceremony this year, the MC called upon the gods of the earth, sky, weather and story to look down on the festival, and then he poured a libation of beer onto the ground honouring the gods of the earth. Indeed, we were encouraged as a gathered people to chant a response, calling upon the gods of the earth. What was unclear at this point was whether these words and actions were part of a theatrical performance or the ceremonial, the purpose of which was to mark that the festival was happening. And this is an important distinction.
In a theatrical performance, a world is created that touches our own, but is separate from it. We act ‘as if’ and if the MC was acting ‘as if’ as he called on the gods to bless the festival, then it was theatrical performance. If it was part of a theatrical performance, I didn’t like it for the reasons I have given above about pantomime representations of other people’s spirituality. However, it would have meant that, if I had joined in with a chant to the gods of the Earth, I would be acting ‘as if’ in the fictional world created as a tribute to ‘The Wicker Man’. I didn’t join in. Firstly, I didn’t like the reduction of Paganism to a religion of human sacrifice. Secondly, it was not clear whether these actions and words honouring the gods were indeed ‘as if’, or were they sincere attempts at Pagan ritual, or were they simply a case of ‘ritual bleed’.
It may be that the MC’s honouring of the gods was heartfelt but, if so, the tone of the words and actions were ambiguous and lent weight to the comment above about the pantomimic nature of the event. I have already said that it was unclear whether these invocations were part of the performance or ceremonial aspects of the opening, but let us assume that they were authentic, and represented a call on the people assembled to affirm the transformative power of Pagan gods. My use of the word ‘transformative’ suggests that we are in the realm of ritual rather than ceremony and ritual (because of its focus on changing the world around us) is always about one set of beliefs that can (and usually will) contradict and contrast with others. I make no secret that I am a Christian, and, on basis that (if we were actually engaged in ritual rather than theatrical performance) I was not going to affirm a religion in which I do not believe, I did not respond when the invitation was given.
I need to be clear that I am more than happy to attend religious rituals that are not of my tradition - to receive hospitality from any religious community, and to have the chance to learn from people of other faiths, is not something to be dismissed. However, when joining people of other faith traditions, I would not expect to give my affirming voice to beliefs that are not mine. The Pagan who kindly gave their time to talk through my concerns was quite clear that it would have been completely unacceptable if the opening ceremony had, in sincere terms, asked the people gathered to affirm belief in the transforming power of the One Blessèd and Holy Trinity. Needless to say, I would have been just as concerned if such a Christian evocation had been used in the same way as the appeal to Pagan gods. Unless a festival is overtly religious or spiritually themed and, therefore, draws a public of that is either of that tradition or interested in it, any invocation of the supernatural will exclude that part of the audience who have not chosen to lend their presence to the rituals of a particular religion. The aim of any ceremonial should be to include, rather than exclude.
Creating meaningful opening ceremonies: some discussion points and a worked example
All organised events have shape and, if that shape is intended as ceremony (rather than simply another performance as part of a weekend of performances) it needs to lead the participants from gathering to the moment of declaration of the festival being open and, through word and action, convince those present that this moment is the most significant of the event.
I suggest, then, that opening ceremonies need a symbolic element that represents and celebrates, in action and/or word, an aspect of the festival experience that can speak to all present. And that aspect could be the nature of the gathering itself, the power of the spoken word, the folkloric tradition, etc.
Ceremony does not have to be complex or drawn-out in order to have impact, but it does need some kind of symbolic force behind words and actions. In this section I present a ‘for instance’ ceremony specifically for FaTE, the core of which could be adapted in following years as the symbolic indication that the festival is underway. I offer this as an answer to the critique that I have presented in this blog, and as a prompt for discussion.
As it is the focus of an opening ceremony, I am going to approach the ceremonial surrounding the declaring of that opening before discussing any additional theatrical (or other) performances. I suggest that the following principles should inform any devised ceremonial:
The action should be visible, and the words audible, to everyone in attendance.
Actions and words should connect to a specific aspect (or aspects) of the festival, such as the shared creation of story, the breadth and/or diversity of the folklore tradition, the power of language to move, the storytelling community and the gathering of that community, etc.
Prominent roles should be given to some people who are not visibly connected with either the management or the performances of the festival.
The ceremonial should have a clear ending which is marked through word and/or action.
‘For Instance’ ceremonial to declare that Festival at The Edge is underway
The marquee venues at Festival at The Edge are labelled with colours, which is reflected in the decoration of each tent and the flags and banners flying from them. This convention provides a ready-made and simple way to structure symbolic action which emphasises the coming together of the storytelling community and the breadth of the folklore tradition.
The opening ceremony would commence with people coming together. As people gathered, the leaders of the ceremonial would enter with bearers carrying coloured flags or banners representing each of the venues (including both the children’s and refreshment tents). In this example, it would be important that the bearers would be members of the paying public, the audience, emphasising that stories are created together, not by a storyteller for an audience, but a storyteller with an audience.
Once the gathering was complete, there would be the opportunity for a performance element of the ceremony, bearing in mind that:
The performance is focused on the experience of the attendees, their sightlines and the clarity of sound.
The content of any performance should be tied to the experience of attending a storytelling festival. For example: the theme of the festival, the gathering of storytelling community, tradition and folklore, or the power of spoken language to transform.
Connections between the content and the festival should be accessible so that the public doesn’t need specific cultural reference points in order to recognise it as integral to the opening ceremony.
It should be performed by artists who are competent in their chosen performance discipline.
Once the performance(s) are over, there would be a seamless link to the ceremonial around the opening. Beyond simply saying, ‘I declare the festival open’, words could be addressed to the gathering about the purpose of the festival and the nature of storytelling. These could be poetic, delivered by several people and form the basis of future opening ceremonies.
At some point, of course, the festival does need to be declared open but, in this example ceremony, the words would be followed by the bearers being sent out to take the flags or banners to the relevant venues – perhaps followed by that portion of the gathered people that wants to attend the performance, workshop or event that is due to start in each venue following the end of the opening ceremony.
Conclusion
I started the thinking for this blog over a year ago. My experience of opening festivals at Festival at the Edge had sometimes left me perturbed, and the labelling on social media of festival opening ceremonies in general as ‘faux’ spurred me to flex those brain muscles that dealt with ritual and performance theory and get them working again after a long period of dormancy.
This blog is written in the knowledge that those who devise and perform opening ceremonies are not out to offend, outrage or disappoint, but rather they want to make something that celebrates the wonder that is a storytelling festival. I reject the word ‘faux’ as an umbrella term for all such ceremonies, but I sincerely believe that there needs to be an open discussion among festival organisers about what constitutes ceremony, and how they can create ceremonies not only of artistic merit, but which celebrate the festival and its values.
References and picture credits
Turner, Victor 1982 From Ritual to Theatre New York: PAJ Publications
Turner, Victor 1987,1988 The Anthropology of Performance
New York: PAJ Publications
Image of University of Roehampton Graduation Ceremony 2019 available at: https://blog.roehampton.ac.uk/2019/02/04/winter-graduation-in-photos-2019/ (accessed 23/8/24)
Image of Celine Dion singing ‘Hymne A L'Amour’ under the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/celine-dion-paris-olympics-opening-ceremony-behind-the-scenes/ (accessed 26/8/24)
Image from the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics available at: https://www.indy100.com/news/paris-olympics-catholics-last-supper (accessed 16/8/24)
Image of ‘Festival of Gods’ by Jan van Bijlert available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_the_Gods_%28van_Bijlert%29 (accessed 16/8/24)
Image of ‘The Last Supper’ by Leonardo da Vinci available at: https://smarthistory.org/leonardo-last-supper/ (accessed 16/8/24)
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