As the week of Brasenose Arts Festival winds down, it’s a good time to reflect on the anomaly that is such a festival for those who speak in the American tongue. I’ve attended a play, an open-microphone evening, a dinner and a cabaret, and there’s still more to come with a celebratory party at the end. And at many other colleges across Oxford, other students, and denizens of the arts, will be experiencing the same sort of thing.
Yet when I mention it to my friends back home, the closest event they have for comparison is Spring Fling, or Greek Week, or Homecoming; all times of merriment, usually verging on raucous, but of pride in one’s university or its sports teams rather than in the arts. This is not to say that the arts aren’t held in esteem; however, celebration of artistic pursuits isn’t organized in the same way.
I’ve come to realize that this is probably because we don’t have summer music festivals along the same lines throughout much of America. We do have some, from Coachella in California, to Lollapalooza, to the now-ubiquitous Warped Tour (which no longer really qualifies as alternative). But in hearing my Oxford friends reminisce about their times at Bestival and Stonehenge, it’s occurred to me that they’re vastly different experiences.
So I appreciate this time, when entire colleges come together, gathering to watch performances and participate in workshops even if it’s not part of their students’ usual routine. I especially enjoy the chance to learn a few new things about being a Brit when it comes to songs. Before today, I’d thought the only song about a catastrophe in the capital was London Bridge. Now I’ve heard the sweet tune of London’s Burning, sung by my (slightly tipsy) friends on the committee, and it’s changed the way I see the world just a little bit.
