A celebration is when our joy truly breaks loose.
Every gesture, every song, is both something we experience together and an expression of the joy that meeting one another awakens in each of us.
For this reason, everyone must have the chance to express themselves, to participate. There is no joy if we are not all protagonists, if we are not all at once both actors and spectators. We cannot communicate if each of us is not, at the same time, both listening and speaking.
To make a celebration truly all of this, we need to prepare in advance. Like any community activity, success depends on careful planning.
But this does not mean that efficiency should be our main concern—efficiency actually kills the generosity of celebratory moments. And it certainly does not mean we should suppress spontaneity.
Quite the opposite. By thinking ahead about what means we can offer so that everyone can express themselves, and what prompts we can give to spontaneity, we simply make it easier for joy to break loose.
It is a matter of choosing which gestures will show us as a community—knowing always that it is the presence of the youngest among us that will carry along even the most reserved and the most sorrowful.
And the preparation itself, I would say, is already part of the celebration. Everyone can help: planning skits or decorations, learning new songs, dreaming up games or dances.
This becomes one more chance to know one another, to gather in homes, and to live in anticipation throughout the whole month leading up to the big moment. Each person will then feel responsible for what the celebration becomes—for a celebration is indeed the expression of joy—and it will be easier for everyone to feel truly united.
Someone will naturally need to coordinate all these separate pieces, so that leading the celebration does not fall to just one person.
We might ask what the best ways are to celebrate at Fede e Luce. The answer is simple: let imagination lead. Everything can be used: our voices with all they can do (singing, rhythms, rounds, storytelling); our bodies and how they move; our hands; our eyes, speaking through smiles; dancing; games; music; rhythm.
Music, in my view, holds enormous power. With it we can:
— sing, keep rhythm, dance, play instruments… and also speak and play.
And we can combine all these possibilities:
— songs with hand-clapping rhythms
— dances set to songs
— games with musical signals…
As for games—in pairs, in teams, or with single representatives—the simplest ones are always the best. The basic mechanics stay the same, but the variations are endless. There are recognition games, hiding games, races, and more. If imagination needs a nudge, you can adapt games everyone already knows (tag, hide-and-seek, ball games, finding the hidden ring).
Theater opens up enormous possibilities: short skits, mime, puppets. The scripts can be invented and improvised on the spot (that is the most fun!), or they can come from transforming plays, stories, folk tales, songs.
One last thing: distribute the different parts of the celebration well, so that movement and rest, songs and skits, alternate throughout.
The best way to express joy and live it together, then, must be sought—sought together—with this always in mind: the search itself is already Celebration lived.
Fabio Sbattella