Borealis 2010

Thank you all!

Artists, volunteers, participants and visitors; you all made Boreana come through! Thank you and see you next year.

Introduction from this year's program book:

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ole Bornemann Bull - violinist, showman, visionary and some-time revolutionary.  Celebrated across the globe for his virtuosity as a musician, Ole Bull was also a passionate advocate of Norwegian independence and a master in the art of marketing and self-promotion.   Whetting the public's anticipation for his performances with mass-production of statuettes, soaps and other merchandising, Ole Bull would have given the PR moguls of today a run for their money.  But although he could be a shrewd businessman, Bull was also a romantic idealist with a dream to create a sovereign Norwegian state - and a bank balance sufficient to the task.  So, in 1852, he bought 43 km2 of land in Pennsylvania, established the communities of New Norway, New Bergen, Valhalla and Oleana, pledged allegiance to the USA and created a flag for his new colonial utopia.  Hundreds of Norwegians were drawn across the Atlantic with the prospect of a better life.

I'm off to Oleana to lead a life of pleasure.

A beggar here, a count out there, with riches in full measure;

I'm coming, Oleana, I've left my native doorway;

I've made my choice, I've said good-bye to slavery in Norway.

- "The Ballad of Oleana", by Theodoare C. Blegen (1852)

Of course, like all utopian dreams, Oleana and its neighbouring towns quickly succumbed to harsh realities, and by the end of 1853 the land had been sold and most of the settlers moved on.  But despite that, the boldness of Ole Bull's vision remains to be celebrated.  The gap he bridged between imagination and action is one which we all have to cross, even in the smallest of tasks.  It is, perhaps, what makes us dream.  The challenge of staging a festival like Borealis is the challenge of realizing the dream of Boreana: the achievements of one emerging from the collapse of the other.     

Idealism may indeed be, as Aldous Huxley claimed, something politicians 'drape over their will to power'; but from the perspective of another great English writer it has a rather different role to play: for William Golding 'utopias are presented for our inspection as a critique of the human state'.