The social and spatial construction of two South African arts festivals as liminal events

Abstract

The claim that ‘festivals suspend the everyday’ is challenged in this article, which deals with how two South African arts festivals – the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival in Oudtshoorn and Aardklop in Potchefstroom – are constructed. This article examines how the ‘setting apart’ of festivals, which is assumed as self-evident in the festival literature, occurs. The notion of liminality (the process by which the ordinary is rendered extra-ordinary during festivals) is therefore central to the analysis. Six conditions of liminality are distinguished: extensive planning and preparation, different senses of time, the alteration of everyday routines, re-discovery and re-appropriation of private and public spaces, the activation of festival spaces; and the reworking of rules. These six factors considered collectively are the most important conditions of liminality within the context of the arts festivals; in other words, they make these festivals into constructed liminal events.