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The Theme this year – ‘The Rituals that Unite Us’
“To celebrate the importance of collective experiences to bind us closer together
To cut through the chaos and noise, our festival will create an intensified sense of shared space, time and emotions, with room for celebration and contemplation.”
To create ritual time and space to resist our modern surrender to information overload.”
Art is still in a position to evoke glimmer of a new for of life.
Director Nicola Benedetti is now expecting her first child. Many feel she has brought an enthusiastic, inclusive and local Scots feel to the festival, as well as respecting the festivals important International threads.
Last year Nicola welcomed people to the first concert playing at the entrance.
BOOK the disappearance of rituals by Byung-chil Han (2020)
My own interpretation was around how gathering together for a concert, or a theatre show or quietly exploring an art gallery - takes us into a different realm than the everyday isolations of being online. That communal escape to celebrate a sense of renewal together in a large crowd is a very powerful one.
Others might feel the concepts of ‘shared rituals’ is an elusive one for many in Scotland. There have been serious divisions over our constitution - but maybe they are not as wide as many feel, when many Scots believe in social democracy - which has not been working well in the British state in recent years.
TICKETS for Edinburgh festival are now on sale - https://www.eif.co.uk
