The National Eisteddfod

     Earlier this week we took the train to Pontypridd in the South Wales Valleys and the National Eisteddfod.  It is the most important arts festival in Wales, and with the Royal Welsh Show the main social event of the Principality. It is a great pity that BBCR3 does not broadcast annually from the Eisteddfod.  It really should as the standard of performers, as we can testify, is excellent.

     The Eisteddfod is a moveable feast, having a different venue each year.  In recent years it has become the custom to divide the Eisteddfod site into a number of Maes (fields) A - D.  We spent our time in Maes A, the outer court of the Temple, the Court of the Gentiles. To be honest I felt somewhat underwhelmed by it all. After a hour and a half I felt ready to leave.  It wasn't that I can speak very little Welsh; this was south Wales and there were at times very few Welsh speakers to be herd; so much so that at one point seeing a rather nice vintage car parked in the middle of the Maes the bf (who has the Welsh) quipped 'Spot a Welsh speaker and win a car!' Only it all felt a little purposeless. There were plenty of exhibitors, such as the National Museum of Wales, the Senedd, and WNO and the NOW, but they were unvisited; the staff sitting around idly browsing their phones. 'Y Lle Celf' - the pavilion of the fine & applied arts - could, at first sight, be described as perfunctory.  However I don't think that would be entirely fair.

     The crepuscular heart of the Eisteddfod is the Pafiliwn, part concert hall and part Telesterion, the Holy of Holies, where the main competitions and the majority of ceremonies take place.  Perhaps it best thought of as a ship's engine deep in the dark and unseen hold of the ship generating meaning and purpose.  It could also be thought of as a womb.  For some reason it was placed - fenced in - at the very southern apex of the site right beside the the noisy A470.  The result was a continual hum of traffic that really wasn't satisfactory for the audience or fair to the performers.
     I've chosen my words deliberately because, like all Arts festivals, the Eisteddfod is a sort of 'Mystery religion' - a secular version of Eleusis.*  'Spilt religion' made visible.  After all it has its own vestments and rituals - initiations and such, and most likely its own taboos.  The speaking of English upon the main stage is perhaps one such.  Certainly as we entered the inner enclosure there was sense of something set apart, that we stood in the presence of something important.  A small but telling point here is the almost total lack of signage; we had no idea where the entrance to the actual Pafiliwn was; perhaps it was sort of knowledge that was whispered to the initiate only.  Oddly, standing in front of that large, blank and somewhat aloof structure I was put in mind of the Kotai Jingu shrine at Ise Jingu in Japan, the holiest site in the nation.  An extreme comparison perhaps.  Rather, it is the Mishkan, the Tabernacle.

     In the end we both agreed we preferred the Royal Welsh Show.  As you may already be able to tell, I certainly felt an ambiguity about the Eisteddfod. Perhaps I shall return, bearing in my mind the secret of a successful visit is to decide what to watch in the Pafiliwn and build your day around that, otherwise it just becomes aimless wandering.  I may even submit a painting or two and see how I get along.

* I think there is tendency in arts festivals towards 'in' and 'out' groups.  It is probably inevitable. I can imagine that this was true of The Aldeburgh Festival in the Britten/Pears years.