Rites of Spring
Those Who Were Dancing columnist Lydia Beardmore takes us on a global-wide journey through the sounds and rites of springtime
Compared to other seasons — which one might associate with the simple sound of a candle flickering, a leaf crunching or the subtle ruckus of a barbecue, Spring sounds are like a chorus. Birds, plants, baby animals and insects emerge and integrate into their habitats. Humans too, wake up and start to dance, play music and welcome the changing season, alongside dreams of a changing world. When we say goodbye to winter, we welcome the new.
There are many ‘global north’ festivals positioned at this time of year to welcome the springtime and the metaphorical new beginnings that this pathetic fallacy provides. Along with the celebration of the blossoms, people bless their crops and herds as they move to pastures new. Lambs, rabbits and calves are born. In the UK, spring has been welcomed with May Day since the Roman Empire, while Newroz and Hıdırellez ritualistically bring in the new year across the Balkans, central Asia and Kurdistan.
These festivals bring humans together as workers of the world unite for International Workers Day. For Christians and Jews, Easter and Passover provide a time of storytelling and rebirth. For Hindus, Holi celebrates the arrival of spring and illusory nature of the material world. In all cases, man makes some kind of bond with nature, in the ceremonial lighting of a fire, the natural dyes that paint the body, the pagan roots of the Easter egg. Religious festivals, as celebrated in the lunar calendar almost always come aligned with ancient blessings and celebrations.
In the UK, May Day is celebrated on May 1st — the same day as International Workers Day in many cultures. May Day is an ancient festival finding its symbolic roots in Roman, Celtic and Germanic cultures and most closely resembles the rituals of Beltane, which means ‘lucky fire’. Beltane welcomes the beginning of the season on the eve of the 30th April by blessing the crops and herds with fire. Growing up in 90s rural England, we celebrated May Day at school by dancing around a maypole to traditional Celtic music, braiding the ribbons of the maypole, and Morris dancers in the town square.
My West Country friends recall the May Queen being crowned and following the Green man through the streets with baskets full of flowers and head garlands for everyone in the town square. While some traditions have died out and others are rising again (for example, Beltane, prevalent in neopagan practices from the late 20th Century until now) the maypole itself, as a symbol of town unity, has come and gone. Almost all maypoles were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell for being “too pagan and wicked” only to be returned by the ‘merry monarch’, Charles II, who erected a 40m high pole in central London. Today few maypoles stand in town squares, but fire dances, the jingle of Morris dancers, the pipes of the band and the foot steps of the maypole dance from primary school children still provide the opening spring song across England.
Elsewhere, the stampede of International Workers Day (also known as May Day or Labour Day) echoes around the world (particularly in communist or socialist states) and provides another community foot dance as workers and allies march in solidarity. Originally set on this day to commemorate the Chicago Haymarket Dispute for the eight-hour working day, May Day is a national holiday in many countries, observed in activities from marches to radical events. For example, in Cuba, the May Day parade is a yearly cornerstone of workers uniting and processing. In this video the sounds of trumpets, banging pots, megaphones and chanting are back after a two year break for the pandemic.
Many cultures celebrate ‘New Year’ during spring, in particular the Kurdish and Turkic festivals, Newroz and Hıdırellez. In all festivals people come together with live music, dancing, celebrating nature, bringing in the new through rituals. Newroz (or ‘Kurdish New Year’) is celebrated in Kurdistan, across the diaspora and is a national holiday in Iran. Similar to May Day, people dress in traditional outfits, light fires and perform group dances. Newroz is also a day of resistance in Kurdish culture, a way of reclaiming a culture and identity which cannot be celebrated due to the treatment of Kurdish people and the supression of their cultural identity. In Turkey and Syria, Newroz celebrations have resulted in the deaths of Kurdish people, while the festival itself and the Kurdish spelling (Newroz over Nevruz) have been banned by the Turkish government.
The dance performed at Newroz (a brilliant way of organising if ever I saw one), sees people line up, join pinkies, whilst stamping in time with each other (imagine a two-step that coils inward like a snake, the leader waving a scarf, a jacket, or often a Kurdish flag while doing some more intricate footwork). While the dancing and fire rituals of Newroz are one of the cornerstones of Kurdish identity, Persian culture celebrates Sizdah Be-dar or ‘Nature day’, in which people are encouraged to quietly spend time with loved ones in nature and release sprouting greens back into water with wishes knotted into them. The following videos show Newroz dancing at events held by the Kurdish communities in Sydney, Austrailia and London, England.
In Turkic culture, as celebrated in Turkey, Azerbajan and the Balkans spring is marked with the wild, all-night party of Hıdırellez. Live Romani music moves through the streets in huge bands, people dance, multiple bands play at the same time, and somehow it all flows together. At the end of the night, people jump over fires and receive blessings for the year ahead, bidding winter goodbye. In villages lamb is eaten and wishes released into spring water and kept under rose bushes.
The clips below show the celebration in two contexts, the fire and water rituals in the Balkan filmmaker Emir Kusturica’s Time of the Gypsies and the Istanbul street party celebrated in the Ahırkapı neighbourhood of Fatih.
What strikes me about all these festivals is the energy and spirit, bringing people together after the hardship of winter. Whilst many of the festivals have been through periods of banishment or suppression of cultural identity, they are examples of how traditional culture can feel radical in a modern world. Or where dancing can feel inclusive, and the human world is aligned to nature, welcoming it in whilst respecting it at the same time. It’s a time to declare what is needed in the summer but also commemorate the winter we have passed through. A time to say, even if things have been hard — the fire, the trees, the eggs — they want us to dance!
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