“The Bee Master ~ A Michael-Easter Festival” will take the place of the Australian Society’s national conference next Easter, and will do so by carefully interweaving all the elements of a regular conference into the wholeness of ‘a hive’. John Stubley spoke with the writer of “The Bee Master”, Jennifer Kornberger, as well its director Horst Kornberger, about the inter-relatedness of its many aspects, the drama at its centre, and some of the impulses behind the world’s first ever (as far as we’re aware) Michael-Easter Festival.
Horst: I think the impulse was really taken up here in Perth and came from two sources, both going back to Rudolf Steiner. One was a comment by Steiner that the festivals will be renewed by the future generations in the southern hemisphere. The other one really comes from the ‘Last Address’ where he urges the members of the Anthroposophical Society in his very last speech to create a true Michael Festival as a pre-requisite for the functioning of the Society. This festival renewal was taken up initially by Jennifer and the Perth Waldorf School community.
John: And what unfolded during these festivals with the school?
Jennifer: What unfolded over three years of creating new mid-winter festivals was a healing that can only come from the artistic realm. The school was at the point where a new social impulse was needed to draw everybody together. The three dramas that were written became catalysts for a large number of people to share the experience of ‘the being of the school’ inhabiting a larger spiritual reality. As a community we touched on the real meaning of a festival.
Horst: For the first time I could feel the impact of a new festival. And by new I mean a festival that is created for the here and now – not something that is repeated, but something that is actually written with a community in mind. It is absolutely fresh. It is a totally new creation in time and space – here and now. I think that’s a very important aspect. It is ‘soul-tailored’ for a community, and that’s what makes it so special. I think the aim is to do the same thing with the Michael-Easter festival – to soul-tailor something that suits us now.
John: And how might this festival, “The Bee Master”, with its soul-tailoring aspect, stand in relation to a regular conference?
Jennifer: It is a different impulse: to aim to weave together the content that the speakers can bring, to link it to a drama, to link everything that happens within that festival to a central artistic experience that is undergone by everybody. There’s a transformative experience that a whole community can undergo.
John: Can you talk about some aspects of the “transformative experience” of your previous festivals?
Horst: The experience we had with the previous festivals at Perth Waldorf School really was that the festival drew together the community – united the community – in a very deep way. And the difference I think is imagination. In a festival a common imagination hovers over the whole community, and that is very different from having a theme that is grasped with the mind. Imagination has a powerful uniting force, and if we all live into the same pictures, particularly if the pictures are supported by music as is the case with this festival, then a communality is created that can carry us as a group, and I hope the same thing will happen with “The Bee Master” that has happened previously at Perth Waldorf School – that we will unite through imagination.
John: Is it important to emphasise that in addition to this “powerful uniting force” of imagination, there will also be the deep content found in lectures, there will also be interesting hands-on workshop activities – that there will be everything of a usual conference but that all of it will be brought together, woven together?
Jennifer: It won’t be short on content. The keynote speaker, Paul Mackay, is very excited about the prospect of a Michael-Easter festival and will, in the coming months, read and live with the pictures in the drama. This will enable him to develop his themes directly out of the drama. Horst and Darius will do the same. Sue Simpson is ready to weave her contribution very closely into this hive. The artistic group that has formed to carry and plan the practical activities for the festival is inspired by the common imagination of “The Bee Master”.
John: Do you get a strong impression of a ‘being’ associated with this festival?
Horst: A festival works really strongly with a being – not to say a conference doesn’t do that, but in a festival the being becomes very tangible. And our past experience was that that being calls forth activities in the participants – that there’s a real calling – that people come up with new ideas and become intensely active – engage their will quite deeply and we’ve already seen that in the time we have so far worked on “The Bee Master” that a lot of people have joined and are willing to give time, energy, thought, and support to the festival. And that’s a very tangible experience for us.
John: Shall we talk a bit more about the drama itself? – How did the theme of “The Bee Master” come about?
Jennifer: “The Bee Master” was born out of at least three pools of experience that eventually merged. Firstly, there were the bees themselves. Being an amateur beekeeper and having read Steiner’s lectures on bees, I was moved by the implications of the current bee crises. When Steiner speaks about beekeeping as something that greatly helps to advance civilization and that by way of the beehive the whole cosmos enters the human being, the current phenomenon of ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ takes on a new meaning.
I began to live into the bigger picture of the beehive as a metaphor for the social future. One of the scenes in the drama depicts a Queen in a cage (caged queen bees for export are standard conventional beekeeping practice). Who is this Queen who suffers? Secondly, there was the regular study of “The Michael Letters” by a committed group of Youth Section and other members, which created real substance for our festival group.
Then there are Steiner’s words about a new Michael festival, where he says, characteristically leaving the fulfillment up to us, “there is, naturally no time to describe to you the scientific, religious and artistic experiences which could arise, just as in the ancient festivals.” I think this longing to bring the three spheres of science, art and religion together is felt keenly by every artist. The question of the real meeting of art and science is also something that has been held strongly by Ian Williams – it is a theme that lives here in Perth.
In the drama, the three characters whose will is called upon are the Bee Master, the Poet and the Scientist. Each is grappling with their own problem – the Poet with ‘the graveyard of words’, the Scientist with ‘the coldest room’ and the Bee Master with time and the need to weave the gifts of the others into a new hive.
John: And what gifts might this festival hold for the Anthroposophical Society itself?
Horst: I feel very strongly that we first need the community and the warmth in order to find the form, not the other way around. I believe if we have a festival with an imaginative over-all content it will help us to find the necessary warmth among ourselves. It will eventually help us find the forms – whatever they are – that will support the future life. Because here in Australia, being on the periphery of the world we have a field of experimentation where the new has a greater chance to announce itself. And on that same vein I would like to say that the Youth Section in WA, who will be having their gathering “The Art of The Future” immediately before our festival, is incredibly active and has put a lot of will behind “The Bee Master.” And through that we are all learning to listen here to what arises from the youth as new impulses that can enliven and co-shape the form of the Society out of this warmth that we are first creating.
John: How much do you think these geographical aspects play into the idea of community?
Horst: Australia is a very isolated continent and WA is the most isolated part of this continent, and this isolation almost forces us to find community. Community here depends on an extra effort – on action – and there’s something about that that is very futuristic. Here we face a kind of community situation that simply isn’t there if we don’t do anything for it.
John: And what about some of the other active individuals in Western Australia who are working towards this sense of community – this renewal of the festivals – with “The Bee Master?”
Jennifer: The renewal of the festivals is something that has lived in a number of people here. I work in close collaboration with an excellent, contemporary composer, Paul Lawrence, who is able to bring new music – music that has a new tone – perhaps a tone that allows an awakening into the musical which is, in itself, a social art. So the music that is composed for the festival is a major factor in creating that hive, one that isn’t to be had anywhere else so easily – especially not of that quality. Lesley Cotter and David Stockdale are both innovative sculptors with a great care for the social. And of course, the Youth Section here is breathtaking in its artistic and social ability, and importantly, in its earnest will for a future alive with spiritual initiative.
“The Bee Master ~ A Michael Easter Festival” will be held in Perth, March 20 –24, 2008. It follows the Youth Section’s “The Art of the Future ~ An Exploration of New Social and Artistic Life.”