We present the treatise Beyond Folklore: The Festival Interceltique de Lorient, which we did not write. It is remarkable and insightful, unlike most writing about this spectacular event.
In the world of Breton music, The Festival Interceltique de Lorient (FIL) is a big deal. It’s actually a big deal by almost any metric. Boasting some 650,000 attendees per year, it is one of the largest international festivals in the world. In looking at the (pretty good) Wikipedia article, and going to the official website, we found a bunch of facts and figures about the Festival but did not find what interested us the most. Which was specifically, a look behind the curtain of the somewhat blithely superficial language that permeates every aspect of analysis having to do with the FIL.
While the anthropologist on staff was pondering writing an in-depth piece seeking to look beyond the platitudes, our lazy asses were spared the effort beyond writing this introduction because we came across Beyond Folklore: The Festival Interceltique de Lorient by Catherine Bertho Lavenir. It’s not for everybody, but that’s fine. It’s long, detailed, and thoughtful. Here, then, is the long, detailed, thoughtful treatise Beyond Folklore: The Festival Interceltique de Lorient, by Catherine Bertho Lavenir, reproduced in its entirety, including notes.
Abstract: Examining some elements from the Festival Interceltique de Lorient (FIL) offers a prism that can bring to light certain traits in the changing processes at work within Brittany’s traditional culture. The festival is held in a modern perspective in so far as it takes up some characteristic aspects from 20th century folk festivals. Other traits link FIL with post-modern recreational celebrations. Among them, asserting local political issues wrapped up in terms of belonging, along with a deliberate inscription in a globalized world, and obvious bonds with the industries of culture and aesthetic forms of show business. The paper shows that FIL is not only the place and time when a traditional culture may be revisited in its shaping and symbolical message, it is a moment when that very culture is being re-negotiated.
Beyond Folklore: The Festival Interceltique de Lorient
by Catherine Bertho Lavenir
In Ethnologie française Volume 42, Issue 4, 2012, pages 719 to 731
Translated from the French by Cadenza Academic Translations
How can we demonstrate the transformational dynamic of traditional Breton culture in its relationship with the most contemporary forms of cultural life? This article will try to describe some of the changes at work by transposing to the field of cultural history a method that is familiar to scientific and technical historians: opening the "black box," to identify the procedures that have governed the development of the object of study, and to discover the influences that are to be found there (Latour 2005). The Festival interceltique de Lorient (Lorient Inter-Celtic Festival) is well suited to this process of deconstruction. Created in 1971, it was always a composite cultural object that brought together different traditions, and various situations within Breton culture (Cabon 2010).
Like other festive occasions such as the Grandes fêtes de Cornouaille in Quimper (1948), now called the Festival de Cornouaille, or the Festival de la Saint-Loup in Guingamp (which has been home to the Kendalc'h federation Breton dancing competition since 1957), the Festival interceltique de Lorient illustrates the trajectory of cultural objects such as pieces of music, dances, and costumes from a peasant culture that was still alive at the beginning of the twentieth century, and which is now part of a performance culture more typical of the twenty-first century. The championship of musical groups, which is held in the town stadium on the last day of the event, aligns the festival with the Breton folk movement heritage as it was reinvented in the 1980s, aesthetically and ideologically. Through the parade of circles and bagadoù (Breton bagpipe orchestras) on the streets of the town that opens the festivities, it is connected to a similar vein of public display of the material elements of the former peasant culture. The inter-Celtic dimension illustrated by the concerts held in various places in the town (pubs or concert halls), as well as the international invitations associated with it, are more similar to contemporary forms of cultural events or live performances (Poirrier 2012). Based on a reconstructed perception of the Celtic space, the festival also, by defending the notion of musical and aesthetic fusion, demonstrates a transformation of the values and representations associated with festivities. The relationships to the past, to identity, to the land, and to the spectator are in some ways typical of the great postmodern events.
To understand the different dimensions of the event, we will first retrace the steps that have led the Breton cultural movement, with its different components, to participate in the festival. We will provide a mediological table in order to schematize the different phases of transformation of the music, dances, and costumes, with regard to their aesthetic characteristics and their social function in Breton and French society in the twentieth century [Editor’s note - table not included]. We will then look at the characteristics inherited from the "folklore" period. Lastly we will identify certain elements that are specific to the globalized postmodern culture of the early twenty-first century, particularly through the notion of "fusion." Focusing on the typical aspects of festive events (occupying public space, constructing a symbolic geography, renegotiating the values associated with organizing them) will allow us to understand the composite nature of a festival that includes some elements inherited from the folk tradition as well as elements that are specific to the economics of contemporary live performance.
A Festival Inherited from a Composite Tradition
The creators of what was (in 1971) called the Festival des Cornemuses (Bagpipes Festival) belonged to the immediate posterity of two kinds of local festivities: the Triomphe de la duchesse Anne d'Armorique (Triumph of Duchess Anne of Armorica), which was held in Lorient for four years from 1953, and the Fête des ports bretons (Festival of Breton Ports), which was established in 1969 by the town festivities committee. The inter-Celtic festival itself, which added the qualifier to its name in 1972, can be seen as the immediate inheritor of several types of cultural activity that are related but different, each with their specific participants and their own aesthetic.
Through many of its formal characteristics, the inter-Celtic festival was initially associated with the tourist and commercial festivities invented in the first half of the twentieth century—the Fête des Filets bleus (Festival of the Blue Fishing Nets) in Concarneau and the Fêtes d'Arvor (Arvor Festival) in Vannes. The program of the Fête des ports bretons in 1969, for example, included elements that were not particularly unique to Breton culture: fireworks over the harbor or the air display (even though the air and naval base of Lann-Bihoué was very close by). The musical selection had a Breton dimension but was not exclusively heritage-based. The singer Alain Barrière, originally from the region, was invited, alongside the orchestra of Europe No. 1 radio station. The inter-Celtic festival was also keen to highlight the town's maritime activities, particularly fishing. There were nocturnal visits to the harbor and, above all, the cotriade, a large communal meal of fish from the local port, which, in the 1980s, reflected new kinds of citizen participation in the life of the town, in the form of communal and festive meals.
There were, however, strong links from the start between this kind of festivity and the Breton cultural movement. In Lorient, the Triomphe de la duchesse Anne d'Armorique, organized with the participation of the local Celtic circle, was based on the model of the many folk festivals that re-emerged in Brittany from the 1950s. It brought together a significant number of bagadoù (Breton orchestras) and Celtic circles in the streets of the town (14 bagadoù, 33 circles). The years after the war were marked by intense activity on the part of the musical groups and the circles. In fact, they often participated in events and parades where they could perform; for example, the Festival de Cornouaille in Quimper, set up in 1923 and recreated in 1948. In 1969, in Lorient, the Fête des ports bretons re-established a direct link with the movements in charge of Breton culture. Its program included all the typical elements of a great tourist folklore event: a national competition of musicians in pairs, a parade of bagadoù and the circles (thirty), and to finish, a "triumph." The parade and the triumph were the chance for the circles to perform in the streets, showing off the beauty of the costumes and the expertise of the dancers.
This festival was the first sign of rapprochement between the authorities of Lorient and the powerful Bodadeg Ar Sonerion (BAS), the Assembly of Breton Musicians, which was a vital organization for the peninsular music movement (Collectif 1996, 404). Created in 1943, this association ensured that Breton music would endure for posterity, by facilitating the transition between the last players said to be "traditional," the organizers of the old rural festivals, and new forms of music. Associated with the musicological movement through collecting, it promoted a more learned approach to the traditional repertoire and undertook the education of young musicians. BAS finally espoused the methods of public presentation of the folk movement, such as public competitions and parades (Morgant and Roignant 2005). When the Festival interceltique de Lorient (which is its full title) finally arrived on the scene, it was in some ways a response to the need that BAS felt to find a new venue for the final of its competition. After a conflict with the town of Brest, the association had to find a new partner and a new venue: this would be Lorient.
The festival's beginnings in the 1970s were marked by a turning point in music that propelled reinvented traditional Breton music onto the international public scene. In its first year, the organizers invited the musician Alan Stivell, whose reputation went beyond the sphere of Breton folk music [1], and even the Irish group, The Dubliners. By doing this, they associated the festival with the contemporary music economy, at a time when international record companies were taking over the production and distribution of new kinds of folk music. Formed in 1962, The Dubliners were a group that, particularly during their United States tours, appeared on stage with a repertoire of traditional Irish ballads and songs. The broadcast of a song called Seven Drunken Nights on the British pirate radio station Radio Caroline in 1967 brought them international renown.
By inviting them, the festival organizers showed their desire not only to give substance to the "Celtic" space, but also not to cut themselves off from the folk movement as promoted by the international record and performance industries. Alan Stivell, the other star guest of the first event, was at a turning point in his career. Having received his musical education at the heart of the Breton revivalist movement, he had already changed record company from a solely Breton one (Mouez Breiz) to Fontana, a subsidiary of the international company Philips. He released Telenn Geltiek in 1966, which offered recordings previously performed for Mouez Breiz to a new audience, thereby clearly affirming his roots in the Celtic space. [2] The record Reflets, with the same company, was extremely successful in France in 1970, and was distributed by Fontana in Great Britain and Canada. [3] The concerts organized in the town also created a link between the festival of Lorient and the festou-noz movement, which was then at its height. The festou-noz were festivals where dancing was not reserved for the specialists of the Celtic circles, and the bands played music that was free from the constraints imposed by the BAS federation and the competitions. [4]
The Metamorphosis of Festivities:
Festivities in Traditional Society
Three different periods can be distinguished. In traditional society, in this case a rural society, festivities were mostly associated with the agricultural calendar and religious festivals (Van Gennep 1991; Fournier 2011). Dances, for example, were linked to practices such as the preparation of the soil in the area to be plowed. Dance music was played by specialized musicians during employers' or parish festivals (the pardons). The costumes constituted a system of signs. They indicated the matrimonial status of the man or woman wearing them, their wealth, and their village of origin. They became more and more magnificent throughout the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, at a time when certain peasant communities were becoming richer and the textile industry was making fabrics available that were previously inaccessible (such as velvet). Dancing was practiced in a way that was typical of communities of old: there was little or no difference between "participants" and spectators, all the members of the community could dance, there was no formal separation of the dancing area, and nor was there any precise moment specified in terms of the times of the dances. They had "afternoon" dances, and dances "before vespers," "until nightfall," or as long as there were enough musicians or singers available, and so on. Although it was continually evolving, this type of festivity persisted in some places in Brittany until the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century (Guilcher 2007).
The "Modern" Folk Festival
New festive modes emerged in the urban and rural world in the twentieth century (Lagéiste 1998). These festivities had the same fundamental elements—music, dance, costumes, and so on—but they belonged to a different set of signifiers. The modern folk event that developed in Brittany and in France during the twentieth century was part of a different, urban and national culture. It was in fact invented in the emigrant cities (by the Bretons in Paris, for example), as well as in the holiday resort towns frequented by the national bourgeoisie (the Fête des Filets Bleus in Concarneau, for instance). Folk performances also became part of national events where the nation was on display, such as the great exhibitions and international exhibitions (Peer 1998).
In Brittany, the great modern folk festivals that were established in the first half of the twentieth century were different than the older festivities in a number of ways. They mainly took place in towns, particularly resort towns. The preferred form was open-air performances with parades through the streets of the town. These events often included the election of queens, and music and dancing competitions. They soon became tourist attractions. In 1905, the singer Théodore Botrel founded the Pardon des Fleurs d'Ajoncs (Parish Festival of the Gorse Flowers) in Pont-Aven (Duflos-Priot 1995); the same year, a group of writers and artists established the Fête des Filets Bleus in Concarneau in order to help fishermen who were suffering from an economic crisis. These major events had certain characteristics of folk festivities, although they could not be reduced solely to this. As with the folk festivities studied by Marie-Thérèse Duflos-Priot, local traditional practices were of course used, while the organizers belonged to a culture that was noticeably different. [5] The Breton festivities were unique in this respect. While in other regions of France, festivities were losing elements of rural culture that were no longer alive (such as costumes no longer worn), in the Breton countryside, the dances and costumes were maintained. It was the displacement of the framework for displaying elements of rural culture that made the festivities modern, while the "personality and the intention of the organizers altered their traditional and popular character" (ibid., 28).
Furthermore, these large festive events were composite from the outset. The Fête des Filets bleus, for example, included elements that were not part of traditional culture. This rendered them more similar to charity fairs: a queen was elected, and there was a funfair and competitions (swimming, with oilskins and hats). The introduction of a queen—something which was itself derived from the tradition of the rosière (a young woman rewarded for virtue), and close in its final form to the "Miss" beauty pageants—was a practice borrowed from other festive models (Segalen 1982; Ribereau-Gayon 2007). In Quimper, the first Fêtes de Cornouaille involved a parade through the town, a music competition, and the election of a queen. The manner of selecting the queen was in fact one of the main difficulties when the festival was re-established in 1948. A procession model was used, which was associated with the promotion of local products, sometimes freshly made. In 1909, in Pont-l'Abbé, the queen of embroiderers and her maids of honor paraded on a chariot as part of a procession. In 1922, the second Fête des Cormorans (Cormorants' Festival) in Saint-Guénolé-Penmarc'h included a (reinvented) Breton wedding, a costume competition, and a lace exhibition. The creation of spectacular events (the reinvented wedding) showed a similar expertise to the Anglo-Canadian pageant from the perspective of "inventing traditions." It was coupled here with the promotion of local products for commercial purposes.
Folk Music Groups and Musicians
These big festive events were the opportunity for amateur folk groups to perform in public, to find out how good they were, and to display a symbolic geography of the region. This was part of a performance mode. From then on, there was a clear distinction between the participants (musicians, dancers, and uniform or costume wearers) who were on show and the spectators, who were confined to the ranks of the audience, and positioned below the platform or on the pavements while the street acted as a stage for the parades. One of the media that communicated this image most effectively was the postcard.
The aesthetic reference shared by the participants in these modern folk events was that of authenticity. The notion must be understood with its contemporary meaning, as the result of a process that is a focus for action. Not all of the organizers of these events attached the same importance to it, and the relationship to authenticity did not play out in the same way everywhere. Overall, musical groups and Celtic circles still constructed their relationships with tradition within a framework strictly set out by the federations that led these activities. The authenticity of the dances, the music, and the costumes was developed through a cultural process controlled by them and implemented during the competitions. The groups were asked to be loyal to an artifact of the past, identified by scholarly research as coming directly from the tradition. Like putting a collection of costumes on display in a museum, musicological research and collecting resulted in collectively accepted cultural references being fixed. The competitions enabled a judgment of the fidelity to the models, as well as the ability to master the learned codes of Breton music; these aspects were validated by a panel of specialists from the world of community organizations (Goré 2004; 2009).
The Postmodern Event and the Festival Form
The Festival de Lorient goes beyond the model of the modern folk festival and presents characteristics that allow it to be identified as postmodern. To begin with, it soon became part of an enlarged symbolic space that included the whole Celtic world, giving it an international dimension. Guests at the 2011 event, dedicated to the diaspora, might have come from New York or Australia. In other years, groups from the Maghreb or Palestine performed. Supported by grants, it is also part of the current live performance industry and has connections with the performance industry: guests have included certain Scottish or Irish groups who are professionals that tour throughout the world. The festival is like a brand, extended into big shows at the Stade de France, Paris-Bercy, or La Villette that are organized according to the current rules of show business. The money involved means this is big business. In 1998, for example, the budget of the Festival de Lorient was 16.5 million francs, self-financed to the tune of 62.5 percent (13.5 million contributed by sponsors and 24 percent from grants). [6]
As for earnings, the figures show how significant they are in the live events industry (100 artistic jobs and 250 production jobs, earning a total of 2.5 million francs in 1998). The festival organizers and the leaders of many of the federations and groups invited are neither amateurs nor activists, but professionals of cultural mediation, who may, in addition, frame their activities within an activist context. Most of the groups are funded by local institutions, and their grants depend partly on the group's capacity to train young people, or meet social and cultural requirements (creating links [Di Méo 2005]).
The place of application for festivities is still the urban space—Lorient is an example of a complete performance—but the festival also exists on and through contemporary media: television and the Web. The television broadcasts images of this summer event, but for a long time this festival had a very limited presence on the main national public or private channels. On the other hand, video and YouTube are the preferred media for conserving and transmitting images of musical and choreographic performances on the Internet. Their main value is visibility, and it is compatible, at this point, with participation in the performance industry: the dances are more spectacular, the choreography adapted, the costumes redesigned with a view to what should be seen and captured.
The Festival de Lorient: A System of Signs
This multiple heritage explains the complexity of the symbolic economy of the festival and its permanent evolution. The source of the transformations lies both in the internal dynamic of the Breton cultural movement (evolving dance and music groups), and in the addition of new aesthetic forms. We will focus here on specific aspects of this question: the use of space, the relationship with tradition, and the ideology of festive events.
The Use and Symbolism of Space
The use of the town space by festive events has an obvious symbolic dimension. The Festival interceltique de Lorient is structured into distinct moments that all relate, on the one hand, to the festive folk heritage that developed in Brittany, and on the other hand, to contemporary considerations in terms of town politics and the creation of social links.
Let us start with the cotriade. This is a communal meal organized outdoors, based on fish soup, which is the dish that fishermen made with the fish that they kept for themselves. The dinner in the port recalls one of the town's former vocations, as an important fishing port between the 1950s and the 1980s, prior to a sharp decline in industry. We can see in this event one of the roles attributed to the festival (by the festival itself, if necessary), which is to create social links and to anchor itself in local society through an event that has nothing particularly Celtic about it. It occurs in a workplace (the port), all the participants are equal, and the activity (the communal meal) is a time for pure conviviality, even if musical accompaniment is included. The model is associated with the conviviality instituted in public spaces by political communications in the 1980s, following the example of meals on the street (Blin 2008). During the celebrations of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, for example, ordinary citizens were invited to organize communal picnics along the meridian line that was measured for the first time by the scientists of the Revolution (Weil 2005). [7] Instituted in Paris in 1999, the Fête des voisins (Neighbors' Festival) also represented a time of conviviality organized for and by fellow citizens. The model seems to be associated, too, with the communal meals organized in the southeast of France by political movements trying to create alternative models for expressing citizenship. [8]
The parade through the streets of the town, called the "grand parade," is a very different moment, when the Festival de Lorient is more directly connected to the folk movement inheritance. More precisely, it borrows one of the most obvious characteristics of this movement, while transforming it: elements of rural culture are displayed in the form of an urban parade. Historical anthropology (Tartakowsky 1997) teaches us that parades in the public space twentieth century France had many political and symbolic dimensions. Military parades, for example, demonstrated that the army was on the side of the republic. Demonstrations gave socialists and other workers' representatives the chance to occupy the public space in a controlled way and to display their symbols (Leménorel 1997; Charle and Roche 2002). They both replaced or were in competition with older forms of ceremonial occupation of the public space, such as religious processions. The republic, which assumed the right to legitimately occupy the urban space through these ceremonies, also granted other social groups the right to do this within a specific legal framework: it was the public authority, represented by the head of the préfecture, who authorized religious processions and determined what their limits would be, and it was he too who allowed carnivals to be held (Fabre 1992).
We could consider the identity affirmation of folk groups in the urban space from this perspective. Reframed in this way, these ostentatious parades would reveal elements of the former rural culture transformed into icons and taken out of their usual context. Contemporaries perceived the political value of this presence in the public space, in the spirit of a protest which had greater or lesser support, from the beginning of the century. They saw in it, at the very least, an affirmation of the existence of Breton culture in a context where the rural world overall, and the Breton rural world in particular, was denied as a vector of culture and aesthetics. "Beauty," in this context, acquired a specific value: it was the affirmation of the capacity of a dominated group (here the peasants of the Breton and Breton-speaking countryside) to dominate an aesthetic. The order of the parade was also significant. In Lorient, the "grand parade" was reorganized each year according to several criteria, including technical ones: the musical ensembles needed to be a certain distance apart, to allow the dancers to hear their accompaniment, and the speed of the progressions needed to be regulated. Other criteria were more symbolic. Both local groups and visitors from afar should be visible; special guests should be highlighted, even if they were not very visible or audible (groups from Palestine or the Maghreb); and the annual theme should be illustrated (Scotland, Ireland, diaspora, and so on).
Folk Groups: A Symbolic Geography
More generally, the parade of the Celtic circles and the bagadoù demonstrated a symbolic geography of the province. Each group affirmed the existence of a small country, and the whole parade confirmed the cohesion of Brittany as a cultural space, structured by its music and dance federations. The Celtic circles and the bagadoù in the parade were not, in fact, autonomous entities who had come together by chance. They had a history and belonged to federations. They were the manifestation of a regulated activity, itself highly symbolic. Marie-Thérèse Duflos-Priot has described the genesis of these folk groups. They formed in Brittany in the 1920s, and at that time were focused as much on language and culture as on dance (Duflos-Priot 1995, 62). [9]
Before 1939, these folk groups could be found in Rennes,… They were structured into federations. In the musical arena, Kenvreuriez ar Vinioueurien (KAV), or the fraternity of bagpipe players, appeared in Paris in 1932. The BAS, whose specific role in Lorient was mentioned above, has existed since 1943, and today gives a solid structure to musical life in Brittany. Since the 1930s, movements like Bleun Breug (Flower of the Heather), Ar Falz (The Sickle) or Ar Leur Nevez (The New Area) have been defenders of Breton language, dance, and song, based on their own aesthetic or ideological choices.
As far as dance is concerned, the Celtic circles were grouped into federations just before 1939. After the war, the Breton movement, which received subsidies from the region and also partly from the state, expanded into small towns and large villages, and was structured to last. The Kendalc'h [Maintain] federation was created in 1950. It brought together Celtic circles and organized dance competitions, as well as conducting critical reflection on folklore and folklorization. In 1994, it federated eighty circles, with 2500 members. The other federation, War'l Leur [On the Ground], at that time included fifty active circles, with 3000 members. The creation of the bagadoù and the increase in the number of circles in some ways created a market of numerous groups with the desire to be present at the large festive events. The program of the Fête des Filets bleus in Concarneau in 1957 had no less than thirty of them. Their roots in a precise location were testament to a close-knit network of the land and the region, and at the same time, a particular conceptualization of the Breton space. The activity of the circles and the bagadoù (often united within one organization) was part of a precisely defined symbolic geography. The music or dance group had to have tunes and dances from its place of origin in its repertoire. Like all federal systems, the federations of Breton bagadoù and dancers clearly told everyone who they were and where they were from. Sports historians have shown that the pyramidal organization of competitions structures both time—the competitions take place on set days—and space: the championship is organized within the parameters of belonging, designating rivals and adversaries, and building an imaginary competitive framework.
The competitions that were regulated and organized by the federations also allowed their members to consider the wider framework in which they were rooted, and to designate who was on the inside and who was on the outside of a controlled symbolic space. In Brittany, the existence of several categories, from the first to the fifth, in dance as well as music, also provided a hierarchy of expertise. It covered a cultural and economic geography. The less expert bagadoù and dance circles were often from places with limited possibilities for recruitment. The most accomplished were those from important towns in the Breton tradition such as Quimper and Quimperlé. However, the cultural parameters were in subtle tension with these expected hierarchies. Auray possessed one of the great bagadoù because it was one of the first to be created, and it was able to recruit some exceptionally talented musicians. Modest towns in the Breton département of Finistère occupied a more important place because they took advantage of the intense effort in musical education that had been made for years by the Finistère general council. Brest, Rennes, and even Nantes had access to the resources of university towns. The cultural geography of Brittany was therefore on display at the final of the bagadoù championship in the Moustoir stadium, with a solid structure that was also eminently changeable.
The grand parade also displayed a symbolic geography of the region. A dialectic was established: dance or musicological research identified local forms. Musical groups would learn them, perform them, and transmit them. By doing this, they conferred a real and material existence on the cultural geography reinvented by musicographers, and associated it with a new popular culture. The same phenomenon affected costumes. The federation rules had been strict for a long time. Groups had to wear the dress of the village they were from. One consequence of this requirement was to exclude the circles of emigrant cities (Paris, the Parisian suburbs, Le Havre) from the competition until the 1980s; these circles were founded by emigrants from different parts of Brittany, and so did not have a local costume or traditions. Although the rules became less strict, dance groups still had a specialized repertoire to perform for the competitions. Broader identity references were therefore negotiated in the margins, in the work on costumes and choreography that diversified the references: urban costumes, trade costumes, and twentieth century costumes began to be worn alongside costumes with classic peasant designs (Defrance 2000).
Relationship with Tradition
The geographically fixed practices of the bagadoù or the circles which assigned specialties to each group (dance types such as plinn, gavotte, ronde, and so on) soon came up against the creativity and desires of the dancers. In the 1990s, there was intense self-reflection within the movement, which led to the conclusion that the relationship with tradition needed to be reconsidered. It should not be the permanent repetition of an original version which had been fixed once and for all, but should be reimagined in terms of fidelity within inventiveness, leading to the question of limits. How far could you go to renew the tradition without destroying it? There is of course no a priori response to this question. It is the practice of the competitions and judging panels that defines the permanently movable frontier between what is and what is not "traditional," and it is the practice of festival planning that determines the aesthetic and ideological limits of Celtic identity. With regard to dance, more and more Celtic circles in Lorient, particularly during the grand parade, were transforming the rules of the federations and the choices of the groups. Full place was now given to the history of the working classes in urban Brittany. The Vertou Celtic circle was also testament to reflection on the authenticity of the costumes and the place of urban models of the early twentieth century. [10] Other circles diversified their costumes. The Chateaulin circle showed its understanding of tradition on its website: a link to a specific place or terroir, scholarly research, and differentiation of garments according to when they were worn. In the last few years, almost all of the circles have redesigned their costumes and displayed different images of their past on the streets of the towns.
Moreover, the festival offers the dancers the possibility to perform not just in the parade, but as part of the onstage show. The analysis of videos recorded on site reveal two phenomena. We know that the form of the parade, for example, has led to the adoption of a much more suitable bagpipe. The circles had to invent a performative way of moving along that would entertain the spectators: dancing in a line and not in a round, or running at times. In Lorient, in 2008, a space was reserved right in front of the television cameras: groups could do a very short performance before continuing in the parade. It was on the stage, however, that the clearest transformation could be seen. The choreography developed by professionals was a more or less free association of the basic elements of a repertoire. They took the audience into account, and the need to show the costumes "with all their designs." Moreover, the competitions encouraged the groups to emphasize the most spectacular aspects of the dances, leaps, and lifts in particular.
Fusion Music?
Lorient, a place where all perspectives converge, is also a kind of melting pot for negotiating the introduction of new elements that remold the relationship with traditional music. The final of the bagadoù championship at the Moustoir stadium raises questions about the renewal of styles and musical fusion through performance. Within the strict framework of the rules that require the alternation of compulsory passages with freer sections, the big bagadoù now offer veritable suites that are the like the work of a refined orchestra. The rules of the final allow instruments that are foreign to the tradition to be added under strict conditions: their appearance is timed by the minute. Each big bagad competing for the title must, in fact, find a compromise between tradition and innovation.
The transition toward another conception of Breton music is not only taking place within the framework imposed by the competition, however prestigious it may be. The performances given during the festival, as well as tours, offer musicians the freedom to explore further. The "carnets de voyage du bagad de Saint-Nazaire" (travel journals of the Saint-Nazaire music group) demonstrates the movable nature of this frontier: "The musicians went off to Morocco, to meet the Gnawas, the percussionists and the Berber singers of the festival of Agadir." An astonishing fusion with repercussions for the finale of the bagadoù in Lorient: "The day before, in the performance, they were uncontrollable. For the competition, we almost had to gag them to get them to stay within the rules" (Cultures bretonnes, special edition 2012). The notion of meeting developed, and musicians from very different cultural backgrounds brought their music together. However, liberty does not mean license. The organizers of the festival prioritized locations where traditional music existed and where musicians played in non-tempered scales. The other frontier is the association of traditional and contemporary music. While the musicians of the great bagadoù have a predilection for jazz, younger and less well-known groups are part of a so-called modern music aesthetic. So in 2011 in Lorient, Krismenn, who was in concert at the Dome (a temporary structure where a number of festival events are held), performed a Breton song accompanied by electro rap. [11]
We will not discuss the structure of the festival any further, for its abundant program defies exhaustive description. What should be clear, however, is how the performances—which explore highly diverse methods for representing traditional Breton culture in terms of their content, their form, and their relationship to the audience—relate to one another within a delineated urban space. In this respect, it seems clear that a festival like the Festival interceltique de Lorient is not only a place to see what traditional culture is becoming; it is also the space where contemporary forms are negotiated. The symbolic work carried out, in its most obvious function, is part of a process of transmission. However, "transmission" is a portmanteau expression that should not be conducive to sparing any analysis of changes due to the process. The transmission of Breton culture is coupled with changes to the social context in which the practice of it takes place. It went from being part of the old rural society in the twentieth century, to being part of the neo-rural world and the modern town. At the same time, practices linked to the calendar of traditional social gatherings were reconfigured into structures for training young people before being included in the framework of contemporary festive events, with their political and symbolic dimensions. Each of these changes has altered musical and choreographical practices in their form and their content. As we have seen, the Festival interceltique de Lorient retains traces of these changes, which are like geological layers.
The festival has, moreover, a dimension of social organization. It occupies a privileged role in the life of the Breton cultural movement. In particular, we have seen how the competition (set up by the federations, BAS in this case), which culminates at Lorient, produces a kind of cultural geography of Brittany that determines how the land is delineated and organizes its symbolic production. Repeating the competitions and maintaining a memory of their results constructs a history shared by the groups and communicated to their audiences. The competition, with its performance role, also organizes the activity of the musical groups, who prepare specific sections for each stage of the competition. It offers a kind of social control over the content of what is called traditional music, as decisions made by judging panels are publicly discussed in specialized magazines and, beyond that, by the audience of fans.
Festivals are also a chance to display elements of Breton culture in the national media, particularly through the broadcast of televised images. We note the poor and stereotyped nature of the input frameworks provided by commentators on national channels. The precise and informed words of professionals of the Breton movement, who are invited to comment on the images, are frequently interrupted and their subjects trivialized in order to meet what television professionals think are the expectations of the national audience.
Finally, the festival provides a perspective for analyzing the aesthetic transformations brought about by globalization of the economics of performance. The notion of fusion, with all its ideological connotations, allows for renewal of the Celtic framework, which is itself reimagined within a wider geographical area. It allows participants in the Breton cultural movement to escape from the narrow frames in which they risked remaining enclosed. As a result, they have access, both politically and ideologically, to the support offered to current music.
Other festivities could be analyzed using the same approach, for example the Fêtes de Cornouaille in Quimper, which has a long historical perspective, or the Festival de la Saint-Loup in Guingamp, which offers a vantage point over changes to the Celtic circles and the Kendalc'h federation, or even, in another geographical area, the Fêtes de la Vielle at Anost in the Morvan, which the organizers consider to be part of the Celtic world. There are many cultural objects whose deconstruction would reveal the functioning behind this lively cultural movement.
Notes
[1] Developed by classically trained musicians, the "Celtic" music heritage, as illustrated by Alan Stivell, is based on traditional rural music; it assumes a wide knowledge of Welsh, Irish, and Scottish traditions; and includes influences from pop, rock, and other contemporary trends.
[2] A modern critic (2012) has said of the 1966 Telenn Geltiek: "The themes chosen were from a repertoire that was Breton ("Kloareg Tremelo," "Kouskit Buan ma Bihan!," "Mona"), Scottish ("Bonnie Banks O’ Loch Lomond," "Tir-Nan-Og," with a little detour via the Hebrides for "Na Reubairean" among others), and Irish ("Plijadur ha Displijadur," "Una Bhan"). Others were of a more mixed or uncertain origin. Thus, on the subject of The Wearin’ of the Green, Stivell stated, "the tune is of Scottish origin, but the spirit comes from Ireland."
[3] Alan Stivell was first produced by Mouez Breiz, a small Breton record company with whom he released an extended play record of "Gaelic" music in 1959. From 1961, his music was produced by the international label Fontana Records, which started out as a subsidiary of Philips Records. In 1970, the long play (LP) record Reflets was highly successful. It was released in 1973 in the United Kingdom (UK), and then in Canada by Polydor. In 1971, Renaissance de la harpe celtique was released in West Germany, the UK, and in Canada by Polydor. This was followed by a series of records with Fontana including an LP of the Olympia concert in 1972.
[4] "La Genèse de ‘Musique Bretonne,’" Musique Bretonne 200 (2007): accessed March 1, 2012, http://www.breizh.de/literatur/musique_bretonne-1.htm.
[5] Théodore Botrel, who founded the Fête des Fleurs d’Ajoncs, was neither from Cornouaille nor of rural origin, and had a career in Paris as a regional singer. He made the Fête des Fleurs d’Ajoncs the "summer attraction of Brittany."
[6] “[webpage title?],” accessed March 1, 2012, http://sylvain.rouault.free.fr/html/dea/dea43.htm.
[7] Weil refers to the subject of the "incroyable Pique-Nique" (incredible picnic) on the green meridian, organized in 2000 and designed by the architect Paul Chemetov.
[8] The difficulties encountered the last time the dinner was held (the service times were too long and many of the guests left) was perhaps a sign of the end of this model of citizen conviviality.
[9] Before 1939, these folk groups could be found in Rennes, Nantes, Saint-Brieuc, and Lorient, but also in smaller places such as Pont-Aven, Pontivy, Quimperlé, and Rosporden. The Catholic association Bleun Brug (Flower of the Heather) was founded in 1905, which was the origin, in part, of the scouts in Brittany and one of the oldest bagadoù. The association of secular teachers, Ar Falz (The Sickle) was created in 1933.
[10] “Cercle Celtique de Vertou,”accessed March 1, 2012, http://cercleceltiquevertou.free.fr/TerroirCostum.php.
[11] “chartsinfrance.net,” accessed March 1, 2012, http://www.chartsinfrance.net/Festival-Interceltique-de-Lorient/Krismenn-au-festival-interceltique-de-Lorient-2011-clip-ytyQSQNVVLEQI.html.
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This publication is one of the leading journals of European anthropology. While continuing to engage with the classic, founding subjects of the discipline, the journal addresses questions of global current affairs: migration, tourism, sports, humanitarian aid, and sexuality. Its anthropology draws as much on French concepts as on Anglo-Saxon ones.
