The tradition of Bonfire-Fellowship rites
on St. John’s day 2011
first step of
Festival of Provinces 2011
Circulating Festival of Popular Culture
Just to the Fifties the town of Alghero was the scene of important celebrations during the month of June, owing the celebrations of St. John’s day. It was a very old traditional feast where ancestral rituals merged with the religious anniversary. With the economic boom years the celebration lost its importance until it disappeared. Since last year, the Feast has returned to life and during only one edition has become an event of strong appeal, able to involve realities outside the island. For the edition of 2011 the Province of Sassari, which promotes the festival through the local Tourist System, decided to extend the feast involving 12 municipalities belonging to the provincial 
area, with a program that will last from June 19th to June 26th. The focal point will be on June 23rd, eve of St. John’s day and the night of bonfires lit in his honor. Around those fires, nowadays such as in past times, will take place the ceremony of fellowship, the jump-upon-the–fire where two fellows, holding their hands and leaping flames, symbolically unite their destiny into a brotherhood. Sporting events, parades of horses and riders in costume will be part of the program such as the traditional divination by pouring fused lead into cold water and to predict the future by the shapes derived from its cooling , and a lot of other proposals. This year the event will weave a connection with the Catalan land, the bonfire will be lit with a flame taken from the bonfires of Catalunya, prepared well in that place in honor of the Saint.
The Italian Network of Popular Culture, of which the Province of Sassari is member and promoter, representing also the national vice-presidency and the coordination of the “Euromediterranean work-table”, organizes just for for that renewed rite a “popular caravan” with the participation of researchers, video makers, performers who belong to the Euromediterranean Network, coming from Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Italy, France and Romania. They will meet the performers of sardinian traditions. The institutional representatives and the responsibles of the most important cultural bodies of the involved nations will be present: the Festival of Amazigh Culture from Morocco, the Festival de Musiques y arts de la Méditeranìa Portalblau from Catalunya, the CULTNAT Center for Documentation of Cultural and natural heritage , partner of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Library of Alexandria, from Egypt, the International Puppet & Mime Festival of Kilkis from Greece, the Fête de la Méditerranée from France and the Global Music Institute from Berlin.
In this context, the reborned Feast does not want to be only a show and celebration but also a period of research and study on local traditions and a chance of meeting with the local communities. Therefore will be present non only local artists and performers coming from the Euromediterranean area, but researchers, academics and students from Universities: five days of journey and meeting with communities and villages in the province of Sassari, a caravan that will cover its path by introductions, researches and records, concerts and shows and will end its journey in the evening of 23rd on the beach in Alghero, by a completely spontaneous way. The involved artists will not be present only as performers but will participate every day to the work of meeting and researches on the territory. Together with some academics and young people they will move from a place to another one and will share thoughts and knowledges with local inhabitans, arriving to the staging only at the end, aiming to make the audience feel protagonist, as is the prerogative of popular culture.