Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

MIDSUMMER AND THE FETE DE LA MUSIQUE

This recent Friday just passed I was skimming through my CliffCentral Daily Dose mail, when my eyes glanced upon a link to an article featured on the BBC website 6 years ago, concerning an inexplicable month long dancing plague in Strasbourg.  Quite surprised to see Strasbourg featured on this South African ‘news broadcast’, I clicked the link, and read the article.  I won’t bore you too much, but the factual article explained how about 400 citizens between July and August in 1518 were afflicted by this ‘madness’ (as it was called), wherein they had been consumed by the urge to dance, uncontrollably.  Officials had realised something was ‘up’, and set up dance halls, with musicians and professional dancers, as they believed that the only way to eradicate the plague was to sustain the dancing.  (Mmm, something to be said for that perhaps?)

Exactly why the article had been referred to, I am not sure, because there is no symbolic ‘day-in-time’ date to connect it to the present, but interesting nonetheless.

But why do I mention this?

Later that evening, I had the pleasure of a baby-sitter while I went off to farewell drinks on the boats on the quai (reason to come to Strasbourg in Summer, my friends), and we were chilling on the deck furniture, all glossy and glammed up for a change, when the topic of mid-summer came up, and the ‘fete de la musique’.

Since the South African summer solstice coincides with Christmas, (and the sun doesn’t exactly hover on the horizon until 10 o’clock), mid-summer has never been something we align to, but here in Europe, you really do feel it.  And the French celebrate it with the music, and dance, at the annual fete de la musique. 

Interesting indeed. The city schedules stages and events across the town, in the squares, alongside the canal.  Musicians are lined up at each venue, kicking off from 4pm, going on late into the night.  The different music genre’s are divided into different venues, so if classic symphony is what you are interested in, you know you could head to Place Kleber, and if you felt like banging your head to the deep roll of a drum and acoustic guitar of a rock band, you could take it in at Place de la Bourse.

Added to the scheduled acts on stages, lit with lights and all the bells and whistles, any musician is entitled to set up their instruments on the streets and corners and just play.

My friends recommended that I definitely take in the experience, even if I wandered through town between 4 and 6, because the streets would start heaving with dancers families and visitors as time wore on.  Since I am on a current single parent phase, I was really apprehensive about taking the girls into a town on my own, but I simply could not validate sitting in my apartment on mid-summers night.

So yesterday I scheduled a sleep for each of us, and we set off at 4, stopping first at the Palais du Rhin to watch a friend at their gym spectac.  Afterwards we took a slow walk through to Place Broglie, up to the Cathedral, to Place Guttenburg and down Rue du Vieux Marche aux Poissons, taking in the sounds, and smells that thronged around us.  Some restaurants spilled out onto the pavements, and I was drawn inexplicably to the smell of meat on a open grill, where merguez sausages and hamburger patties were being braai’d.  As we moved along, so the different sounds would be absorbed by the buildings and there would be little conflict on our senses.

The first stop we made was in front of the Cathedral, where we stopped to listen to 4 Frenchmen playing the bagpipes.  Bagpipes ALWAYS make me think of my Mum with her Scottish ancestry, and when the bagpipers started up on Amazing Grace, I pulled out my phone to record them, to message to my Mum- though I don’t expect she really appreciated it as much as I enjoyed listening to Amazing Grace on the bagpipes under the Cathedrals’ Rose Window.

 

At Place Guttenburg there was a stage, and Alex was drawn to the girl band singing something quite folksy, but it was quite packed with people already, and I was carrying Beth’s JD Bug by this point, so we left, my nose drawn to the smell of braai, my eyes following the smoke down Rue du Vieux Marche aux Poissons. There we stopped to listen to some guys on another stage, loud enough that Beth put her fingers in her ears.  We left so that I could hunt down ice-cream for my girls who were really behaving well, and deserved a treat.

Ice-creams in our clutches, we wandered back home via Place Broglie, stopping on a corner for a while to listen to a middle aged, slightly hippy crew on pieces of music that I could not name- maybe you can, by looking at my picture below? 

Alex climbed up onto a window sill to get a better look, and although Beth was still finishing her ice-cream, I did notice her feet tapping to the sound of the drum beat.

Ice-creams finished, we were on the last stretch when we came upon 2 guys playing their house music- electronic,  with a table top drum set and headphones, and smoke machine.  Both my girls stopped in their tracks, and with the reflection from a building in their sights, my girls proceeded to dance, like nobody was watching them.  Just as if it was July, 1518, during the madness of the dance.

We arrived home after 7 which was late considering I had not fed the girls dinner, and I was really sad that Anton had not been around to join us.  The girls might not have enjoyed all of the music, but they barely complained at all, and next year, I will make sure that we are prepared to have dinner in town, to enjoy the evening, to capitalize on mid-summer festivities.

When I went to bed later, I stopped and thought that although there is no link between the dance plague of 1518 and the French fete de la musique, there really could be, just a little bit, don’t you think?

And sadly, while we have an entire summer ahead of us still, the days will start getting shorter, and we are on the road into winter.  At least though, I get a second summer solstice in this year…