One of the many things I took away from last night’s session at the Auburn was a reminder about the power of language. What did Holly say? “Language is loaded.” How easy it is to forget that a word whose meaning we believe we know intimately and profoundly, a word we carry around and use with gay and sure abandon, is received differently by those who hear it. Debates over beer about the definition of art and culture have been part of my life since school (that would be a few decades ago). And it’s always good to do it again, because each time my perception shifts, opens up a little; I get surprised a little, humbled a little, and am reminded how limiting and deceptively easy it is to rely just on our voices to communicate. Language is loaded.

It got me thinking about festivals, and why they’re so popular, relative to ‘art.’ ‘Art’ has connotations of elitism – come to this great building, cross this threshold, enter this hallowed place, wear something appropriate, be prepared to learn something. None of this is necessarily what the artist wants, but the connotations of the word are there, nonetheless. And it can be inhibiting, intimidating, or can just sound like a bad idea to lots of people who are looking for something to do on a Friday night.

Then you invite people to a festival: for a lot of people, the word carries with it a cornucopia of positive connotations – it says you’re here to play. Nothing to do with unappealing, duty-laden things like art or education or spiritual enlightenment. You can come as you are, wear what you want, you can nibble daintily or gorge yourself in an experience that can stretch to pretty much any size you’re comfortable with. Just come, have fun, and join a bunch of other people in celebrating.

Festivals break new ground with audiences because no one is there to ‘learn anything.’ (Which is, of course, the optimal learning environment for transformational change; that magical place where it’s safe to take a risk. But don’t tell anyone that.)

Festivals have a magic of experience that goes beyond whatever their core element is. If it’s a festival about music, the performance is the essence of it, but it is the flurry of celebratory activities and happy noise around that essence, over a very limited, intensely active period of time, that creates a festival experience. If it’s a festival about food, the tasting is the essence of it, but when you’re done with your plate, the festival’s not done with you. You bump into other people with bbq sauce on their cheek, you check out another booth, you get hooked on the next experience…

A friend of mine who ran a great festival for many years said the reason festivals were so popular was because they gave permission for people to act abnormally. You were allowed to talk to strangers, to wear your jeans, to eat candy floss, to have an adventure – hmm, I wasn’t thinking of this when I wrote it, but it sounds just like Stampede week, doesn’t it? But it also sounds like the Folk Festival, Sun and Salsa, GlobalFest, High Performance Rodeo… variations on the same theme. Festivals remind people that it can be fun, and safe, to be a part of something outside of our daily routines. (There’s the transformational part.)

Those are only a couple of factors, I think, that allow festivals to have positive impact on their communities. And I don’t want to set festivals up as god’s answer to making the world a better, transformed place to be. Nothing can be all things to all people, and I believe when a festival tries to do that, it cannot value its essence with the passion that seeds all its the other activities and happy noises; it becomes hollow at its core, the noises become darker or just meaningless. The event will then, eventually, either dissolve or implode.

Connecting with people over a shared experience is what builds community. It crosses barriers of language and difference, and it alters our perspective, if only for a short while. Which is really what art strives to do. Maybe we just need a new word. Or just less words.