Medieval Festival

MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL

This year the Fifth Annual Medieval Festival will be held on two consecutive weekends in August. Saturdays and Sundays, August 3 & 4, and the 10th & 11th. And, it's all free for everybody.

On the first weekend the Festival will present medieval plays, music, and dancing at four locations in town. The weekend of the 10th & 11th will feature a complete medieval festival and fair on the spacious lawn of the Music School at North Campus, including displays of medieval arts and crafts.

In the tradition of the authentic 13th century medieval festivals, this year's festival will travel from village green to village green. On Saturday, the 3rd, the Festival will be in West Park beginning at 11 am and then in Burns Park at 3 pm. Sunday, the 4th, the Festival will move to the Ark Coffeehouse (Hill near Washtenaw) at 11 am, and then on to the Arb at 3 pm. Three plays will be presented at each location along with music and dancing.

On the weekend of the 10th and 11th we will see the lawn and pond area of the Music School transformed into a medieval marketplace and festival. Along with the plays, music and dancing, the Fair will include arts and crafts displays and demonstrations organized by local craftspeople.

This year the Festival will present three plays from the medieval era: The Second Shepard's Play (from the Wakefield cycle), The Miller's Farce, and a children's play, Reynard the Fox.

The SUN had the good fortune of talking with David Bernstein and Judy Ottmar, two of the organizers of this year's Festival. The first question that carne to our mind was, "Why a Medieval Festival, anyway?"

David, who has been active with the Festival since its inception back in 1969 explained that the Festival is a forum for people who want to do some acting but who are not professional actors or do not want to get into it full time or even half time. "Eventually, though, enough of us who want to do something a little more regularly might come together," David said. The plays performed by the Festival are 12th through 15th century. During that time there were few professional actors, so these plays were performed by the various guilds of the time. The carpenters guild, or candlemakers or potters guild would present skits and plays at various festivals and fairs. This was real people's theatre. Later, actors became professionals, and the Shakespeare period developed. "We try to keep to the spirit of the original festivals," David said, "none of the actors, musicians or dancers are professionals. We're just regular folks who live around here and like to perform."

Judy, who handles publicity for the Festival, explained that this year the Festival includes more people than ever before. "Tom Taylor, of the U of M School of Music, is organizing musicians to play authentic medieval instruments for all our plays. Their small budget and ours gives us enough to put on the Festival." Valerie Janesick, who teaches a course in Medieval Dance at Art Worlds, is directing the dancers. A children's drama class, also from Art Worlds and taught by Margaret Sedgeman, will present a children's play written and performed by children on the 10th and 11th. This year, for the first time, local craftspeople are going to display their wares and give demonstrations. In addition, the Gelman/Palidofsky Dance Theatre will perform an original dance drama based on Medieval liturgy.

Most of the plays of that period were based on the bible, but when they were performed by metal smiths, cobblers, potters; when they were performed by workers, they lost some of their reverence and became a forum for exposing their pitiful living under the King and the Church. This year's Second Shepard's Play, performed by 20th century workers, still reflects the spirit of the original cast.

See all you serfs there!