Our Medieval Festival
Two days ago, we held our final festival of the summer- a medieval celebration! Centauri became the village of Centaurby in the North of England, in the year 1218. With King John only two years dead and the French forces in retreat, our village recently petitioned the young King Henry to hold an annual charter market. The first market having been a huge success, all of us gathered on the village green to celebrate. Each camper signed up to help design one portion of the celebrations. Some created traditional games such a welly throwing and cheese rolling, while others joined travelling minstrels, jesters and a travelling theatre troupe. For an hour we prepared, while Blackthorn Productions – a visiting medieval theatre company – also set up attractions all over our village. Then, the celebrations were declared open! Campers took turns to run their own activities, and to rotate all the other attractions. We offered archery, a knights’ tournament, trebuchet demonstrations, performances, music, medieval ‘cures’ for common ailments, medieval snacks and drinks, fortune telling and so much more.
We spent the afternoon enjoying all these attractions, until the village bell rang, signalling a raid! Everyone ran to hide, and when they emerged from hiding it was to find an outlaw had been captured… and the entire bag of money raised from our market had been stolen! The Mayor assembled 12 villagers who he felt might have information to offer about how had committed the crime, and why. Campers rotated between the characters, interviewing them in an effort to solve the mystery.
The mystery solved and the bag of money returned, our afternoon of medieval celebrations ended with ice cream, free time – and then a medieval banquet with lots of entertainment! The entire camp took part in a medieval circle dance (which was unbelievably chaotic!), there was a juggling demonstration, and the Earl of Blackthorn
offered a stage combat demonstration with broadswords.
After dinner, everyone was tired – so we ended the festival around a bonfire, where campers heard a retelling of the folk story that inspired Hamlet (and strangely, it has a happy ending!). Everyone wandered off to bed exhausted and incredibly happy after a wonderful final festival of the summer.
I want to end this blog with a shout out to a certain lady who has this blog read to her every week. Thank you for giving me the inspiration to keep writing, even when time is so short here at camp. It helps to know someone is out there, reading what we write!
This may be the final blog of the summer. Today, we’re moving into dress rehearsals and tomorrow, we will have 200 guests on site for the final day of the summer. Two days of clean up will follow as we turn Centauri back into a school and pack away 4 trucks of supplies! On Thursday next week, we go on tour with a group of lucky campers to a writing retreat in North Wales! Check back in at the start of September for an update on all our tour adventures – and if you are potentially interested in joining us on tour next summer, go to https://www.centauriartscamp.com/summer-camps/international-arts-tours.htm for information on our tour to England for teens next summer, or http://www.centauriartsacademy.com/writing-classes-for-adults/writing-courses-for-adults.htm for our family and solo writer tour to Costa Rica next February.
Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Julie
CentauriArtsCamp.com