A whole new world, at the Ye’arot Menashe Festival

The new acts weren’t given access to a professional stage.

By NOPHAR BEN-MATITYAHU
A whole new world, at the Ye’arot Menashe Festival (photo credit: MATAN WEIL)
A whole new world, at the Ye’arot Menashe Festival
(photo credit: MATAN WEIL)
The Ye’arot Menashe Festival is a six-year-old annual celebration of music and culture, which has grown considerably with each passing year.
One could say the festival, held in the Menashe Forest, near Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, starts when you walk through the wooden arch, capped by a painted sign “Ye’arot Menashe” – but then one would be wrong.
It begins with the preparations.
Shopping for the perfect partners to share in the experience, for the right clothes that are just the right mix of comfortable, nice and easily discarded – because the one certainty you have is that at least one item will be ruined. Then for food, which in theory should negate the need to buy it there.
These preparations confront the average participant with a barrage of questions that demand immediate attention, such as: What do you need, what’s important, how much to spend, who wants to join in, who already has something and wants to share, when are they joining and how does that factor in?
For some, like Nitzan Levenberg, who spent months working on assembling a group to enjoy the festival with, this time can prove to be very stressful. She worked hard on planning a menu that they could all agree on, then on delegating shopping responsibilities and making sure no one was in need or want of anything – only to end up eating at least one meal a day in the food court, because who can pass up noodles? Then there are people like Aviv Oppenheim, who were more interested in the music. The festival staff had published the lineup in advance, and even linked it to the different bands’ official sites. This was in accordance with the organizer’s stated goal of introducing people to new music: to allow anyone and everyone to get to know the artists and listen to their material.
Oppenheim spent his time planning for the performances he was interested in, and brought a guitar for those moments in between.
Then the time comes when the preparations end and all that is left is to make the journey.
The organizers set up a website for people to offer rides and for people to ride along – some offer snacks while others pitch in with fuel expenses.
Alon Hoffman, who decided to take his car, said: “It’s exciting when supposed strangers fill up your car with all their plans and expectations,” and you get to meet new people.
Personally, and in hindsight, I realized how symbolic that ride really was. In a sense, that drive was the act of ejecting oneself from the normal world.
Over the past six years the event has grown from a small event almost no one has heard about to one that attracts thousands. As such, logistical measures had to be taken. Its rising popularity has, for one thing, forced the organizers to come up with alternative parking solutions, as the site of the celebrations would be forever damaged if thousands of dusty fuel- guzzling vehicles came thundering onto it – causing erosion and destroying the ecosystem.
The solution was a shuttle ride from the parking lot to the actual festival, which only took 10 minutes.
But even as those first lines formed, the peculiarities of the new world began to get noticed.
For one thing, everyone was standing in neat lines and waited patiently for the shuttles to arrive. There was no pushing, no impatient cussing, no cutting and, moreover, there was friendly conversation between strangers. This type of behavior would be seen throughout the festival – mainly when waiting for the Port-A-Potties.
While walking through the camping site, people looked around them and stopped to help complete strangers with all sorts of menial tasks, such as putting up a tent. If someone found themselves alone it was only a matter of seconds before they found themselves asking to join in with another group and then be accepted completely, or alternatively, before a group offered themselves, and cookies, to the lone walker.
While to this reporter this proved to be especially surprising, the organizers of this event – a group of friends who had grown up around music and festivals of all sorts – saw it coming.
“The Ye’arot Menashe Festival exists for people who are lovers of music, dance, theater, singing and art. It is for lovers of people and nature, for people who are open generally.”
The list of performances throughout the festival was impressive. With a wide range of genres and performances by Mercedes Band, Lucille, The Angelcy, The Betty Bears and more.
But it was disappointing to see that the artists rarely took part in the festival themselves. And it seemed that the bigger the number, the less time they spent there.
Shlomi Shaban, for example, who had performed the very first night with Acollective to thunderous applause, went back to Tel Aviv almost immediately – along with the members of the band he had met only recently and was wholly impressed by. While personable, and a careful song selector who took this performance seriously, the concept of sleeping in a tent under the stars may have been just too much for the Tel Aviv dweller.
And he wasn’t the only one, though others may have had other reasons.
The lead singer of a band few have heard of – Anna RF – which means “that nothing is certain, I don’t know,” he says – may like performing to the festival crowd, which hoots and dances with no holds barred, but some may find the event too crowded and big. Everything is relative, and when one lives in a small community of 30 families in the South, being around thousands of people can seem daunting.
But it does raise a question. What is this festival really about? According to Anna RF, it is about “widening your horizons, exposing yourself to new things.”
The organizers, for their part, also seem to find the festival purpose as one of culture, which draws people in due to the music it opens them up to.
But is it really to discover new acts, or is it to give more of the same in a more condensed timetable? One has to wonder, when the only stage fitted for professional cameramen hosts the big numbers, such as Mercedes Band and Dr. Casper’s Rabbit Show, who played the same music they always play.
“It’s all about the hits,” one of the members said after the performance, and like a true veteran of the field gave all the credit of their success to the audience.
“What would you prefer? That they play new songs that would end up sucking?” asked one festival attendee. “They’ve been in the business for 20 years, how much can someone create? Besides, we love these songs, it’s nostalgic.”
For a festival that claims to be for people who are “generally open” and aims to propel new creators, this seems like a bitter conflict, which is only exacerbated by the differences between the stages.
“The main stage” and “the small stage,” might not be what event creative director Hadas Wanunu called it, but it is what they were.
One is right there with everything, with places for cameramen and lighting and is large enough to fit an elephant, while another one is far away – forcing people to leave behind the actual festival area to reach it – and could maybe fit a housecat.
This has to mean something. And it does to some performers, who admitted under condition of anonymity, that it hurt their egos.
However, Wanunu said, these d i f f e r e n c e s were born out of a desire to mold different atmospheres for different stages.
In contrast to the small stage, “the Shoresh [main] stage is meant to keep the audience dancing, it’s upbeat… anyone could get on it if they were good enough,” she said.
Indeed, there were plenty of performances I had never heard before by singers who were impressive and surprising – despite the unfortunate sound issues with the equipment – like The Betty Bears.
It was most definitely worth the four-hour drive and weekend isolation from the outside world, even if they didn’t take part in the spirit of the festival themselves.
Some barriers are not meant to fall, I guess.