The magic, mystery and ritual behind Ibiza&rsquo;s solstice celebrations

Weaving together magic, ritual, myth and folklore, midsummer in Ibiza is a dramatic affair. Every year, on June 23rd, a series of small bonfires set the tiny town of San Juan and many other parts of the island ablaze with colour, as people gather to dance and leap over the flames.

The Noche de San Juan, as it&rsquo;s known, is a Christian commemoration of Saint John the Baptist. Yet its roots originally lie in the ancient, elemental pagan rituals of the June 21st summer solstice.

For Ibiza&rsquo;s early pagan civilisations, the solstices and equinoxes marked pivotal moments in the farming calendar. In these agricultural societies, crop cultivation and harvesting were a matter of life and death &ndash; and were celebrated as such.

&lsquo;The solstice marks the point of the year when the sun is at its greatest power, but it&rsquo;s also about an awareness that the sun can destroy everything,&rsquo; says Joanna Hruby, founder of performance group <a href="https://theatreoftheancients.com/">Theatre of the Ancients.</a> &lsquo;It&rsquo;s about the meeting of two opposite forces: fire and water. There&rsquo;s not a lot of recorded information from that time, but it&rsquo;s thought there were rituals practiced that involved lighting fires to burn and release things and then going to the blessed fresh water. It symbolises the fiery heat of summer and then the water bringing the rains and the essential completion of the cycle.&rsquo;

With the arrival of Christianity, these ancient solstice traditions later became absorbed into the Noche de San Juan. &lsquo;On this night, it&rsquo;s said that the water of Ibiza&rsquo;s wells and springs has magical properties,&rsquo; says Hruby. &lsquo;So having jumped over the fire and released their past, people go to bathe in the well water, cleansing themselves and embracing the potency of the coming season.&rsquo;

Other mythic tales connected to this otherworldly night include the story of the fameliar. According to local folklore, on the Noche de San Juan a special flower blooms under the Roman bridge that crosses the river of Santa Eulalia. Those who pick it and put it in a bottle with water from the river or a local well can summon a fameliar &ndash; a little spirit who can fulfil special tasks.

These and other island myths and rituals all find fresh, contemporary form in Hruby&rsquo;s Theatre of the Ancients events. A mesmerising blend of storytelling, giant puppetry, paper theatre and participatory ritual, her performances have won a cult following since her arrival in Ibiza in 2015. Her latest, Solstice Stories, co-created with artist Liz Kueneke and a collaborative performance team, is a journey into the legends behind the Noche de San Juan. Taking place at Las Dalias&rsquo;s Holotropia event on Thursday 23rd June, it promises to be an evocative, multi-sensory experience.

For Hruby, these performances have a significance that goes beyond entertainment. &lsquo;In modern times, the ancient pagan relationship between human beings and their local habitat is being completely lost,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;These simple ritual ways of bringing people back into a recognition of the landscape and its seasonality is so important. It makes people feel as if they&rsquo;re really getting under the skin of the island.&rsquo;

She also draws a parallel between the jumping of the flames and the reckless abandonment Ibiza is known for. &lsquo;For me, it's about strength and control and learning to put hedonism, which is something that&rsquo;s very strong on this island, into a compartment and start being more aware of social and ecological responsibility. You can draw some beautiful meanings from the solstice rituals of going into the fire and celebrating the sun but then balancing that with the water and its lunar energy too.&rsquo;

Primal and powerful, Hruby&rsquo;s storytelling offers a bridge between Ibiza&rsquo;s past, present and future. &lsquo;Essentially, it&rsquo;s all about mingling with the imagination and the collective unconscious,&rsquo; she says. &lsquo;I hope these experiences can be just a tiny seed that stays with people and may inspire them to see things in a slightly different way. I hope it allows people to recognise all of the layers of Ibiza and its incredible folklore and culture. These ancient rituals are still alive here in the hearts of the people who want to celebrate them.&rsquo;

Sweet Summer Solstice

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