BC Musician: Emerging Festivals

published in BC Musician Magazine
Festival Guide Edition | May 2013
written by Jason Guille

In the world of electronic music, BC festival goers have always been a rather blessed bunch. From the small & sacred to the sizeable & savage, BC dance-music festivals offer a tremendous variety of participatory environments & seductive soundscapes.

Long before they become the magical multiday monsters we spend the whole year either reflecting on or impatient for, the electronic music festival begins simply as an idea – or collection of ideas – within what often begins as a small, impassioned and visionary group of mad scientists.

The diversity of interests & intentions of the festival organizers themselves always show up in the events as well, some manifesting as mystical family-oriented gatherings of great reverence & intention, others as committed multiday ragers more known for hormones than harmonies. Said another way – there’s really something for EVERYONE.

This holds true with events that have grown to a certain size as well. BC’s famous (and award-winning!) Shambhala Music Festival (Salmo BC, Aug7-12, www.shambhalamusicfestival.com), for example, now sits well in excess of 10,000 annual attendees. With so many co-creators, independently managed stages & numerous self-managed zones & offerings, the polarities of available experience are mind-boggling! One moment you are deep in the woods off the Labyrinth stage meandering through the water temple and receiving a healing from an indigenous elder, the next moment you are a packed like sardines with 5000 fellow frenzied sweaty dance maniacs being body-wobbled by the biggest sound system on the west coast. I highly recommend you try both.

Like all great socially-driven creations, festival culture continues to reinvent itself as an ever-evolving reflection of the wants & needs of our communities. Nowhere is this more prominent than in the current blossoming of the “Transformational Festival”. It might be said that the transformational festival is the evolution of the “intentional festival”, an event philosophy centered around co-creation, community stewardship, participatory ritual, knowledge sharing and the tried & true principals of peace, love, unity & respect!

The Transformational Festival is really a cultural experiment; a collective emerging vision not only of what dance culture is today, but of the many possible futures foreseeable within the symbiotic relationship of music, celebration & progressive community development.

Though perhaps too young to have a broadly agreed definition, some of the common elements of a transformational festival include scheduled workshops & conversations covering a broad cross-section of new paradigm content, shared ecstatic dance ritual to electronic dance music, co-created & participant-generated environments, the integration of visionary live, projected digital & performance art & installations as well as ritualistic performance & ceremony.

For the uninitiated, this might sounds like some of that ever-popular and fluff-filled new-age mumbo jumbo. However, this new paradigm of gatherings is not only very real, it is evolving quickly and being propelled by some of the most powerful visionaries & community builders in North America. Its emergence is the natural outcome of an awakening population, hungry for connection, contribution and a deeper experience of their own consciousness.

The transformative nature of the new festival experience continues to draw attention from media makers from inside and outside the culture as well. From A.C. Johner’s 2011 ethnographic documentary ‘Electronic Awakening’ (www.electronicawakening.com) to the stunning 2013 four-part documentary series ‘The Bloom’ (www.thebloomseries.com), we are repeatedly drawn to explore & shine a spotlight on the dramatic ongoing evolution of intentional festival culture and its potential for life-changing impacts.

One very powerful demonstration of this new festival model is Bass Coast Project (Merritt BC, Aug2-5, www.basscoast.ca). Founded in 2009 by three very activated west coast women, Bass Coast communicates its vision as ‘To contemplate, to educate, to innovate and to CREATE! This is our festival. This is our coast. This is our Culture’. Packed full of group yoga, collaborative art, workshops for brain & body and observing one of the most committed green policies of any festival in BC’s history the prospect of having a ‘transformational experience’ doesn’t require much imagination. Bass Coast’s continued commitment to its community warrants our gratitude and with any luck, our modelling.
This summer BC will see the arrival of a new gathering of kindred spirit with the birth of the family-friendly ‘Luminosity’ (lower Vancouver Island, jul12-14, official facebook page). Described as ‘A Pacific Northwest Visionary Music Festival’, the new festival will feature 2 cutting edge audio-visual stages, a visionary art lounge, workshops & presentations, interactive art installations and a community vendors market.

Though not predominantly electronica in nature, the debut of the very elaborate ‘Believe Freedom Festival’ (Whistler BC, Jul11-15, www.believefreedomfestival.com) certainly warrants musical notice and with a homepage espousing the nature and value of ‘universal consciousness’ we are very excited to partake in this exciting new event.

As both the music & methodology of this new festival experience continues to evolve from seed to bloom, one thing remains ever constant – the community that creates & partakes in these gatherings make it what it is, and I wish you an amazing festival season of exploration, contribution, contemplation and of course.. celebration!

 
For those wanting to explore a broader representation of available west coast festivals, you can explore the Sunset Labs 2013 West Coast Festival Schedule at www.sunsetlabs.ca/2013-festival-schedule.

Jason Guille is a venue owner, project manager and festival producer based in Victoria BC.