Seats and forms of power : What made Woodstock such a powerful & mythical festival ?

Seats and forms of power

I’m going to talk about the notion of seats and forms of power. First of all I would like to give a definition of power. Power is the ability to control others and to make things happen despite obstacles, resistance, or opposition. It can be exerted by many ways, non violent or violent, by a person, group or government. This, of course, leads to conflicts between those who have power and those who don’t, that we can call “counter power”.

In relation to the notion, the topic of my presentation would be the power of art. Because I think today, we live in a society who influenced by arts with: painting, photography, literature, movies… The main topic here is festival and most particularly : Woodstock

so we may wonder : What made Woodstock such a powerful & mythical festival ? In order to illustrate the notion, I will talk about two documents, the first one is the Jimi Hendrix version of the national anthem and a youtube video about the significance of Jimi Hendrix Star Spangled Banner

The star spangled banner is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the Defence of Fort Mc'Henry, a poem written on September 14, 1814, by the lawyer Francis Scott Key after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships of the Royal Navy in Baltimore

Key was inspired by the large U.S. flag, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, known as the Star-Spangled Banner, flying above the fort during the U.S. victory.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889, and by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1916

Woodstock was a music festival held on a farm in the Catskill Mountains, northwest of New York City, between August 15–18, 1969, which attracted an audience of more than 400,000.

During the festival, Jimi Hendrix chose to play the national anthem his way. His version wasn’t very melodic, it was tortured and distorted, and played on an electric guitar whereas the original was played by an orchestra. We can hear the songs of war like bombs falling, tanks rolling and child crying. Jimi was protesting against the vietnam war. Many americans were angry about his version believing it was disrespectful but the hippies loved it. This song became famous because it was broadcast around the USA on TV. The both versions were first played during a war but the first supported the us and whereas the other was opposed president Nixon

I think the Jimi Hendrix version is a good form of art but my taste go for the original version for his patriotic and powerful meaning, i think americans should be proud of their country

The second document is a youtube video about the significance of the Jimi Hendrix version of Star Spangled banner, It describes the political context. America was in the middle of fighting the commies in Vietnam and during all of the cold war, it was the first televised war. In 1969, the jim crow laws in the deep south had only stopped being enforced, but the racial separation was still there .

JFK was shot 6 years before by the marxist Lee Harvey Oswald

In 1967, the Monterey Pop Festival in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love on the West Coast

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