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Multi-Faith Saskatoon |
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Festival of Faith 2002
Multi-Faith Saskatoon's annual Festival of music, dance and presentations from the diversity of faith communities in Saskatoon.
Multi-Faith Saskatoon held its 18th annual Festival of Faith in November 2002. This Festival started in 1985 as a sacred music festival but has evolved to include dance, commentary, prayer and other offerings from the diversity of faith communities in Saskatoon. This year's Festival was considered by most to be our best and most diverse program.
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We were blessed to have as special guests seven visiting monks touring in North America. | |
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| We also had the local Doukhobor Choir singing in both Russian and English, | ||
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| a group of Sikh youth performing a lively and spirited dance, | ||
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| and a group of youth from the Sri Sathya Sai Baba community sharing several chants. | ||
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There were also presentations of music, prayer and chanting from the Jewish, Baha'i, Christian and Aboriginal communities. The program started as always with the traditional call to prayer offered by an elder of the Islamic Community. | |
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| The program closed with a responsive reading of a Universal Prayer and finally a participatory drumming circle where audience members could come up and share in creating rhythm with a variety of instruments from drums and rattles to a didgeridoo. | ||
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The festival is rotated between different locations each year, with various faith communities taking turns hosting. This year the visit of the Gaden monks and the publicity surrounding their installation of a sand mandala at the University of Saskatchewan Library prior to the festival created a lot of interest in the festival. It also created our biggest problem-more people wanting to attend then we could accommodate. |
Multi-Faith Saskatoon organizes the program but relies on each faith community developing presentations, usually around a theme (such as peace). There is no auditioning and no professional standard. It has been found that the strength of the festival is in the expression of the spirit or love or identity of the faith communities themselves. This sense of the presentations conveying something of each community's identity or ideals was very strong in the 2002 festival.
The above experience reflects on the maturity of the various faith communities in our city. There is a growing representation from many newer faith communities plus the heritage of some of the first religious settlements in the Canadian West. For example, when a large group of Doukhobors was assisted by Leo Tolstoy and the Society of Friends to leave Russia in 1898 because of religious persecution there, most settled in the Canadian prairies. Saskatchewan is much the richer for their values and their arts. To hear Doukhobor chanting and singing is a rare and beautiful experience.
In this year's festival a deliberate attempt was made to include more children and youth. This was a great success as they brought a vibrancy and purity of heart that touched people greatly. Multi-Faith Saskatoon is greatly looking forward to building on this year's success for future festivals.
The festival is the major multi-faith event of the year and people who come are often surprised by both the diversity and the degree of co-operation of the different faith communities. One thing that has made the Festival of Faith so successful here is a strong commitment from David Kaplan who initiated the festival and has acted as co-ordinator for all the 18 years since.