Michaelmas Pageant and Tasks of Bravery
Join us on Friday, September 29 at 8:30am
for the Michaelmas Pageant
presented by the Grade School Students
in the Pavilion at CWS
Parents are invited to join us for an open-air performance of the CWS annual Michaelmas Pageant. The Pageant will begin at 8:30am. Please drop your student or students off as regularly scheduled, and then join us in front of the Music and Arts Building for coffee before the Pageant begins.
The show will go on rain or shine, unless there is thunder or other serious weather that is prohibitive to having the children outdoors.
After the Pageant, Grade School students will complete their Tasks of Bravery and return to their classrooms for a special snack. Dismissal for grade school students will be 12:30. Early Childhood classes will come to the Pavilion for the Pageant and return to their classrooms after. All CWS parents and guardians are welcome to come!
What is Michaelmas?
In Waldorf Schools around the world — particularly those in the Northern Hemisphere where the holiday coincides with the cooler weather and increasing darkness — Michaelmas is a beloved and highly anticipated annual celebration. But for our new families, this may be the first time hearing or experiencing this Festival.
Michaelmas, or the Feast of Michael and All Angels, is celebrated on the 29th of September each year (at CWS we celebrate on the closest Friday). Falling near the Autumnal Equinox on the calendar, it is often the first Festival celebrated during the school year in the Waldorf School. There is usually a harvest aspect to the celebration, apple cider and pumpkin muffins are a staple! The fiery colors of the dragon are reflected in the changing leaves and the pageant costumes of the students.
The Michaelmas Pageant tells the legend of Saint George conquering the dragon with the aid of the archangel Saint Michael, freeing a noble princess from a horrible fate. Rather than kill the beast, Saint George tames it and the villagers take it in and teach it to plough the fields, overcoming their greatest fear and putting it to work for their advantage.
The Michaelmas legend comes from a Christian European tradition, but like so many other stories that have crossed cultural and geographical regions there are layers of intention and understanding that the story can impart. Allegorical pageantry in this style is a method of performance and storytelling used around the world, throughout history, to share important concepts and to form group purpose or identity. The timing of Michaelmas at the Autumnal Equinox can be seen on the surface as a visual reflection of the changing leaves in the dragon’s fire and a retelling of the story of St. George. Going deeper, we can find a representation of the continuous striving for balance between darkness and light/chaos and harmony/wildness and restraint that lives within each of us. An archangel in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, Saint Michael here represents the courage of each individual, that light we can call upon when our own resources feel depleted. And as the days grow shorter in the winter months, we can remember how the villagers harnessed the power of the dragon – that wild beast with the hidden fire – to aid their survival and bring them back to the light.
Waldorf schools around the world celebrate Michaelmas because it is a reminder that the dragon and the saint are both within us.
Read more about Michaelmas:
Living Arts Weekly: Michaelmas- A Festival Dedicated to Inner Work >
Photos from Michaelmas, September 29, 2023
