REVELS HISTORY
Revels: Building
Tradition Through Music, Dance and Drama
A million people
nationwide have joined in the song and dance of Revels musical
theater celebrations, including The Christmas Revels, Summer
Revels, Spring Revels, RiverSing, Sea Revels and Harvest Revels.
The Beginning
Concert baritone
John Langstaff
staged his first Christmas Revels in New
York City at Town Hall in 1957. This exciting production with
its traditional songs, dances, and mummers play introduced a wholly
new way of celebrating the winter solstice, and received critical
accolades. In 1966 NBC Television, recognizing the value and great
appeal of the Christmas Revels, engaged Langstaff to create a
nationally televised Christmas Revels special, called "A
Christmas Masque," which ran for two consecutive years as
a Hallmark Hall of Fame Special.
In 1971 John's daughter
Carol persuaded her father to stage Revels in the Boston area.
As a team they pulled together a large group of performers and
staged three performances of The Christmas Revels in Harvard University's
Sanders Theatre. In the close community of Cambridge, they found
the right environment and an enthusiastic, supportive audience.
By 1974, a community of "Revellers" was actively involved
in the annual productions, and the non-profit group Revels, Inc.,
came into being.
Revels' Mission
The
mission of Revels is to celebrate the seasons and cycles of human
life through performance and participatory experience, and to
cultivate an understanding and appreciation of traditional music,
dance, drama and ritual drawn from the world's cultures.
We
pursue this mission through music theater, educational programs,
recordings, publications and community celebrations, in Greater
Boston and across America. We engage people of all ages and backgrounds
in activities which are designed to entertain, to nourish the
spirit, and to build bridges across generations and cultures.
Revels Staged Productions
Revels performances celebrate the changing
of the seasons: The Christmas Revels is a celebration of the winter
solstice; Summer Revels, the beginning of summer. Both
use traditional and ritual dances, processionals, carols and drama.
For many, Revels answers that submerged yearning for ritual and
for the markings of ancient landmarks in human life. Through Revels
productions one begins to understand that the same great river
of myth, story and song has fed all cultures throughout the ages.
Revels cast members
include professionals and volunteer non-professionals singers,
dancers, and storytellers children, adults and seniors. Professionals
are rejuvenated by the energy and enthusiasm of the volunteers,
and the volunteers become performers at a personal level that
they never thought possible. The addition of children augments
the onstage spirit of family and community.
Revels' theatrical
vision distinguishes itself in that its creativity comes not only
from a rich international heritage of cultural celebrations, but
also from the people with whom it celebrates, creating a true
feeling of community celebration.
Important production
elements remain the same from year to year, but the settings,
place and time change annually, encompassing a broad range from
a Victorian parlor room to an Eastern European or Mexican village,
to Appalachia or to a Medieval Manor. The audience joins in singing
and a spirited intermission dance. At the Christmas Revels, the
audience anxiously awaits traditional elements such as the dance
of the morris men, the mummers play of death and rebirth, the
mystical Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, and joining each other and
the cast in the "Lord of the Dance" recessional at the
end of Act I.
The Need for Tradition
Langstaff believed that through Revels
we come in touch with ritual, once an integral part of village
life, now lost in our fast-paced urban lives. In the great cities
of this country we find a hectic pace of living, a weakening of
family ties, and a longing for tradition and the sense of community.
Revels helps satisfy that longing. During the annual singing of
The Lord of the Dance, the audience and cast eagerly join hands,
weaving out of the theater and into the lobby in a simple ritualistic
dance step handed down through the centuries, circling in a spiral,
tighter and tighter, and then symbolically winding out of the
winter darkness into light, ending with a joyous cheer.
"The impact
of the Revels is that the individual comes away with a sense of
having been in contact with a community that extends beyond the
walls of the theater touching deeply and stretching outward. The
people touched in this way don't bother searching for words. They
just join in. . ." wrote Michelle Koetke in a Boston Herald
article.
The Growth of Revels
In 1975, Revels, Inc., formed Revels North
in Hanover, New Hampshire. Four years later, Revels returned
to New York City to create the New York Revels. In the last two
decades, more production companies have been added: Washington,
DC; Oakland, CA; Houston; Tacoma; Portland, OR,
and Boulder, CO. Each community
has its own non-profit Revels organization, and is contractually
and artistically affiliated with Revels, Inc. Revels Artistic Director
Patrick
Swanson and Music Director
George Emlen, following in Mr. Langstaff's footsteps, continue to research traditional material
and develop new scripts that are used by the various Revels companies.
Revels produces
recordings, books and sheet music, and presents workshops demonstrating
the use of traditional material in performance and celebration.
As word has spread, new organizations continue to develop, presenting
solstice celebrations that draw heavily from Langstaff's original
inspiration.
Revels has also
expanded into other seasons and ventures. with presentations of Summer Revels;
RiverSing, in conjunction with The Charles River Conservancy; and has a touring
ensemble, Circle of Song, which tours throughout New England.
As we look towards
the future, Revels will continue to develop new programs and resource
materials, and to act as a guiding spirit for those seeking to
introduce celebrations based on traditional themes into their
own communities.
Photo by
Roger Ide
