Let’s Get Festive!
May 2, 2008 by Angie Macdonald
In the first of a series of exclusive articles published in association with the new bi-monthly print magazine Dulwich Living, Angie Macdonald celebrates the season of festivals.
It’s May, which means it’s festival time again. Not only in Dulwich, but all over the country festival organisers and communities are preparing to shake off the Spring chills and celebrate the beginning of Summer.
Small, local festivals have an important role to play in bringing people together to celebrate what is important to that community. They also mark out an area as unique and interesting.
Take Durban, South Africa, where I grew up. Known as ‘The Last British Outpost’, it was a sleepy seaside city, good for surfing and surrounded by lush farmland. Apart from the annual school Speech and Drama Festival, festivals were a rare event. But every year my family would trek to Pietermaritzburg to attend the Royal Agricultural Show. My father would lead us through all the cattle and pig stalls and piles of fresh manure and then we would spend hours looking at bottled jam and embroidered cushion covers in the Crafts and Home Industries hall. As a girl, interested in history and literature, I felt quite out of place.
Is it any wonder then, that what I love about living in England are the quirky cultural traditions and associated festivals. Traditions like the annual Cheese Rolling contest in Brockworth, where people fling themselves down a steep hill in pursuit of an enormous round of cheese.
Or the Sweeps Festival in Rochester, Kent, a celebration of chimney sweeps and apparently, the largest gathering of Morris Dancers in the world. I love watching Morris Dancing. With its bearded men hopping and leaping in merry fashion, bells a’ringing, hankies a’flapping and sticks a’banging, it’s guaranteed to make the world feel a silly, but jolly place.
So, I am curious to see that the Dulwich Festival features the Dulwich Folk Dance Club. I wonder if there’ll be any Morris Dancing or my personal favourite, Maypole dancing.
As a young girl, I thought Maypole dancing was a sport. At school in South Africa, I was in a Maypole dancing team and we were drilled to compete on the school’s sports day. I loved the music and skipping round the pole, watching the ribbons form intricate patterns. But, in the heat of the African sun, I had no idea why we were doing it or where the tradition had come from. All I knew was that if you could get through the entire dance without making a mistake, you were a winner. Competition was tough, and God knows, it was so easy to mess up.
Festivals play a role in preserving traditions and reinforcing cultural values. So, what does the Dulwich Festival say about Dulwich and its inhabitants? We like to read, go for walks and grow vegetables. We appreciate art and good music.
There is one event that sums up the spirit of Dulwich for me and that is the Artists’ Open House. Artists and residents open their studios and houses to the public for a weekend in what is, to me, an amazing expression of trust and openness. Perhaps, that’s what this festival says most about Dulwich – that it is a warm and welcoming place.
What’s your favourite festival? Which Dulwich Festival event did you like most? Share your views and Leave a Reply below.
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Photo: Thanks to hddod on Flickr (CCL)
My family lived in Cambridge in the 70s, which was big on beards. folk singers, macrame, morris dancers and Merrie Englande celebrations generally. I remember being ecstatic to be chosen for the Maypole dance troupe at my infants’ school one May Day. There’s a photo of me somewhere dressed in a mob cap and long dress, big smile, happily going the wrong way round the pole and mucking up the ribbon design… story of my life, but at least I enjoyed myself!
Sounds like you had the childhood I dreamed of, Anna. And as for mucking up the ribbon design…. I am convinced that I first developed my strong aversion to team sports while on the Maypole dancing team. The stress of potentially letting the whole side down was just too much for me and so my brilliant ’sporting career’ was thwarted before it had really begun. I took up reading instead and have found that to be a lot less traumatic.