{"id":311,"date":"2019-08-23T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T09:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=311"},"modified":"2019-08-23T11:03:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T10:03:10","slug":"festivals-and-folk-lore-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2019\/08\/23\/festivals-and-folk-lore-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"FESTIVALS AND FOLK LORE FOR ALL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Depending\non your demographic, you know, like how old you are, your gender and\nwhereabouts in the world you live, each reader will have a different mental image\nwhen asked to think about the phrase \u00b4music festival.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps\nfor the younger ones among you and perhaps, too, for the oldest among you, a\nmusic festival conjures up the mud and gumboots of Glastonbury and canvas tents\nor yurts depending on whether or not you prefer to camp or glamp. Children of\nthe sixties will probably think of Woodstock and Hendrix and the highs of\nillegal substances and old folkies like me will think of Cambridge or Fairport\nConvention. Opera buffs might already be aware of a feasibility study under way\nthat might see a UK Opera company taking workshops and performances of The\nPirates Of Penzance to Lnazarote in 2020. Those of you who love a passion play\nmight see images of Oberammergau, of which next year sees the forty second\nperformance, as always by local citizens rather than professional performers,\nwith a three hour break for dinner scheduled between two long performance\nhalves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those\nreaders between middle age and retirement (an age range that seems to lengthen\nyear by year doesn\u00b4t it?) might be seeing fireworks by a lake in leafy Cheshire\nas The Halle Orchestra plays. Some of you will see the romance of it all whilst\nmost of us will be already wincing at the price tag it might carry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\nof you, when you think of a musical festival, might think of it from the\nperspective of a player. Certainly, it was almost always in some kind of\nperforming capacity that I attended festivals in the UK. My band, Lendanear,\nplayed regularly at annual folk gatherings on the Fylde, in Manchester, at\nPoynton in Cheshire, Bury and Salford. My performance poetry group, Just Poets,\nperformed at several annual National Poetry Day Festivals in towns like Bolton\nand Blackburn. I even ran my own Lexicon weekend festival in Rochdale before  serving for five years as host of the town\u00b4s Literature\nAnd Ideas Festival, delivered by the MBC and the Borough\u00b4s Library Service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\neven played once at Strawberry Fields at a Beatles convention, but we will draw\na veil over the spectacular success that my performance wasn\u00b4t ! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas lucky enough to get to a couple of country music festivals at Wembley in\nthe early nineties when working as a journalist and I interviewed artists like Willie\nNelson, Emmylou Harris and Mary Chapin Carpenter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwas a year I got into a bit of a spat when I was reporting from Nottingham on\nan \u00b4international country music festival weekend.\u00b4 There were hundreds of\nBritish fans all over the place dressed in the blues or greys of the American\ncivil war and carrying confederate flags. A remark I made in my review about\nthis being proof that the care in the community scheme wasn\u00b4t working almost\nstarted a civil war of its own ! The cowboys ran me out of town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nFestival scene I stumbled into after retiring here to Lanzarote four years ago\nis just as vibrant and diverse as that in the UK, though the audiences are\nusually built of fewer numbers. Perhaps because of the weather and the still\npervasive \u00b4manana\u00b4 attitude, the atmosphere tends to be more laid back than I\nremember it being in the UK. Any venue here is always less than a forty five\nminute drive from wherever you live on the island so travelling time and cost\nis less stressful and because of an enlightened approach from The Cabildo\nalmost all the Festivals are free to the public, and delivered to a first come\nfirst seated audience, with a wonderful lightness of touch from any security\nservices, and with absolutely no public impoliteness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nCabildo, by the way, is the island government which is akin in status and power\nto the way I perceived Rochdale MBC to be when I lived there.  It has some autonomy but is a patchy, if\nquite effective, coalition of various parties and is part of a Canary Islands government\n(as is Rochdale to Agma, the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) that\nin turn is monitored by Spain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\ndays I still visit festivals in my capacity as a writer, as such events provide\nme with the news, interviews, previews and reviews that I then deliver to the\nLanzarote Information web site and to these pages of Sidetracks And Detours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Festivals\nhere are dotted all across the arts, from music to Manrique, a late artist and\nvisionary to whom the island remains enthralled. The music and dance and arts\nand crafts and \u00b4artisan\u00b4 events tend to be held outdoors, on temporary stages\non beaches and in the villages of the island. An incredible number of art\ngalleries per capita, each house several visual arts exhibitions per year, as well\nas talks by artists and conferences and debates about the arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nhave some excellent young curators and there are even one or two of the\nexcellent freelancers among them who are often hired by The Cabildo, or a\nparticular gallery, or even sometimes by the exhibiting artists themselves, to\nconduct occasional \u00b4guided tours\u00b4  of\nexhibitions both large and small. We have attended several of these \u00b4walks and\ntalks,\u00b4 a number of which have been delivered by Estafania Comejo, a well-informed\nyoung lady who offers objective views on an arts scene she so obviously loves,\nand who can also be entertainingly subjective in her opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words\nand music are my own first love, of course, so we have been really lucky to\nhave enjoyed so many music festivals here over the years, as well poetry\nreadings and even book launches under the umbrella of a Literary Festival,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only\nlast week we travelled thirty odd miles North from our home on the tip of the\nSouth East peninsular to spend a few days at The San Gines folk lore festival\nin the capital city. We booked into a hotel for four nights because the\nconcerts, like most on the island, were scheduled for nine pm starts, with a\nsecond concert beginning at 11.30 pm and continuing into the small hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ladies Of The Dance at San Gines
photograph by Dee Dutton<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe course of those evenings we saw eight wonderful music groups, involving\nsome 200 musicians all accompanied by a fantastic \u00b4dance ensemble\u00b4 performing\nto a total of more than four thousand people. The temporary stage, with top\nquality and well managed light and sound stood before a back drop of a hundred\ntiny fishing boats moored in the harbour beneath a setting sun and surrounded\nby the twinkling lights of the fifty or so restaurants around the perimeter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nshould remind you again that all this was free admission to the public so long\nas space was available from which to witness this vibrant, colourful sight and\nsound extravaganza. Everyone is welcome and nobody is ever really turned away,\nbecause open land is so plentiful over here that everyone who arrives too late\nto find a chair can always find a rock, or a wall, that will serve as a seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes\nthere are a few tourists who turn up at such events, but the truth is that\nthose who are here for only a fortnight are so bound up by the all inclusive\ndeals on offer that they sit in their hotels \u00b4doing Lanzarote\u00b4 and don\u00b4t take\nthe opportunity to mix with local, island people at these incredible events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nmight be understandable and there are other mitigating factors too, for\nfamilies on holiday with young children or whatever but I am frequently\ndisappointed by how few new residents (that is to say people like us, who have\ncome to live here in recent years) turn up at these events. We have always felt\nperfectly safe and welcome and to be honest those indigenous to Lanzarote or\nThe Canary Islands seem to love celebrating their culture and sharing thioer\nenjoyment of it with anyone is interested. Perhaps, though, with many such new\nresidents being of a senior generation, festivals don\u00b4t hold the attraction for\nthem that they once did, or perhaps they might feel that they would in some way\nbe \u00b4intruding.\u00b4 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nthat is precisely why we keep posting the signposts down these Sidetracks And\nDetours giving directions all across the arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultural\nawareness gained from the arts can increase social understanding and tolerance,\nso we post these notes on our blog to encourage new residents to check out the\narts scene for themselves, not only because that will increase social harmony\nand cohesion and blahdy blahdy blah blah, but because we feel sure that once\nthey experience the amazing talent and generosity of spirit  that we have experienced, they will festival\nforever on and like us they will learn to \u00b4sing like you don\u00b4t need the money,\nand love like you\u00b4ve never been hurt, and just dance like there\u00b4s nobody\nwatching, and let it come from the heart if you want it to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nphrase, by the way, was incorporated into a catchy country song recorded by the\nlate Guy Clark, from Austin, Texas, and written by his wife Susanna. Look out\nfor a feature on Guy\u00b4s work in some forthcoming posts about songwriters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Depending on your demographic, you know, like how old you are, your gender and whereabouts in the world you live, each reader will have a different mental image when asked to think about the phrase \u00b4music festival.\u00b4 Perhaps for the younger ones among you and perhaps, too, for the oldest among you, a music festival […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}