Euro Festival | Case Studies

We single out major urban festivals that are mixed-arts and multi-thematic that display a strong focus on the city that hosts the festivals, on its specificity and 'sense of place'. At the same time there is an intense encounter with outside artists, cultures and even publics.

The focus on urban festivals is especially relevant to aesthetic cosmopolitanism. Although with various degrees of self-consciousness and explicit narratives, they thematize the art of living together that the city supposedly always represented - from Simmel's stranger to contemporary theorists of the global city - thus claiming, often explicitly, a special tie with cosmopolitanism.

The Venice Biennale is one of the oldest and better-known European festivals established in 1895. It claims to promote avant-garde and experimentation in all the arts with a 'multidisciplinary model which characterizes its unique nature'. In 1895 the arts component of the Biennale was first launched, then the contemporary music, cinema and theatre festivals followed in 1930, 1932 and 1934 respectively. More recently the Biennale also became a focal point for architecture (since 1980) and dance (1999). The synergy between Venice as a historical capital of culture and cultural exchange and its renown international prominence due to the Biennale makes this festival a key example of an urban mixed-arts festival.

The Brighton festival is the biggest mixed-arts festival in England. It was launched in 1966 and it always takes place in May. Its programmatic commitment is to 're-imagine the city's traditional spaces with extraordinary performances or reinventing the art of performance itself in the city's unexplored landscapes'. An alternative programme to the Brighton Festival, the Brighton Fringe Festival, that also runs since 1966, defines itself as the biggest 'open access' festival.

The Vienna festival was first held over a few years in the 1920s and then again re-launched after World War II in 1951. It takes place every year for five weeks in May and June. The festival developed over the years from a festival targeting primarily Viennese residents and with a strong Soziokultur orientation to a more international festival allowing more space for experimentation.

Despite a persistent interest in film and cinema and especially the identity and impact of 'European film' as opposed to that of the U.S. film industry, there is little on film festivals with respect to identity and cultural performance. We will consider two kinds of festivals: those with a long history and tradition and smaller ones. From among the bigger ones, we will consider those of Venice (since 1932), Cannes (since 1946), and Berlin (since 1951). From among the smaller ones (over 1,000 across Europe), we will focus on the Jewish film festival of Vienna founded in 1991.

The Venice, Cannes and Berlin film festivals provide in addition the opportunity to explore the growth and reception of European productions (since 1998 with the financial support of Eurimages) as opposed to U.S. productions and for scrutinizing the French defence of European film as a 'cultural exception'. The study of the Jewish film festival (founded in 1991), on the other hand, will provide us the occasion to analyze the ways in which the Viennese Jewish community negotiates its identity in relation to Europe, Austria, Israel but also Palestine.

Contemporary literature studies, established more within humanities than within sociology, is an established discipline on the study of ideas in and through literature and has produced some remarkable analyses on how different (linguistic) traditions, genres or authors frame or reflect upon issues of broader societal and political relevance. However the focus of literature studies are the works themselves. Literature festivals as encounters between authors and the reading public receive comparatively less attention.

The Hay Festival, established in 1988, is one of the oldest and trans-national literature/writing festivals. Its main component is organized yearly in Hay-on-Wye with the explicit aim to provide a forum for conversations of the public with writers, musicians, film-makers and comedians. Prices are intentionally kept low and there are many free events. In 2007 and in collaboration with the UNESCO World Book Capital Initiative, a special Hay Festival is also organized in Bogota to focus on Latin-American narrative and new writers; and a second one on Colombia (Cartagena de Indias) and in Spain (Segovia).

The Berlin Literature Festival was launched in 2002 and forms part of the Berlin City Festival. It has standard sections on 'literatures of the world', 'international children's and youth literature', 'speak / memory' and 'reflections'. The 'speak / memory' section re-considers texts from the past; the 'reflections' section is designed as a platform for the discussion of controversial issues in politics, economy and culture.

Finally, the European Border Lands Festival was launched in 2006 by the Allianz Cultural Foundation in collaboration with book publishers and urban book fairs to explore and stimulate literature production in East European countries (new member states) and covering also minority questions.

Music is probably the most enduring, influential and ubiquitous of the performative arts. Its centrality for public culture is apparent in its relevance for processes of personal and collective identity formation, for the experience of public space and as a resource for social mobilization. Music festivals are the main venues in which this performative and public dimension of music is made visible and put into use. At the same time, they are key places for the strengthening of the ongoing process of music commodification.

Womad is the most famous European World Music festival. Conceived more than twenty years ago by the British rock musician Peter Gabriel, Womad stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance. Its central aim is to bring together and to celebrate forms of music, arts and dance drawn from countries and cultures all over the world. Since the first festival in 1982, Womad has presented more than 145 events in 22 different countries and islands. Having established its presence in the UK, Womad evolved gradually during the eighties in a nomadic subject. Since then, Womad's worldwide profile has grown quickly, now embracing events in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Canary Islands, Sicily and the UK each year. The UK remains its main geographical and institutional basis.

Umbria Jazz is one of the most celebrated musical events in Italy, and one of the most important jazz festivals in Europe, and possibly in the world. It was founded in 1973, and every year brings together leading artists of the global jazz scene and local jazz musicians. It is held in Perugia, sponsored by the local and regional administration. It takes place every summer (July) and lasts approximately ten days, with dozens of concerts spread across the city centre, devoted to a variety of music genres (whose common denominator is improvisation) in order to accommodate the tastes of an ever more heterogeneous and international audience.

Sonar is the most recent of the three, but has quickly established itself as the most relevant festival in the European scene of electronic music. Electronic music is a mixed genre in which we find both electronically produced dance music and vanguard, experimental music, more in the spirit of classical-contemporary music. The festival focus on the discourse around new technologies - among both producers and audience - offers the opportunity to closely consider the relationship between European youth identity, new media and technologies.