🏮 Our Number of the Month: 18 🏮
Over the past decades, we have had the pleasure of taking part in Bad Homburg’s traditional Laternenfest 18 times. This year, we will be contributing to both the official opening ceremony at Taunus Sparkasse and the closing celebration.
Especially in our 60th anniversary year, this is a very special gift and a great honour for us.
There are traditions that need no explanation. You just feel them!
Every year at the end of August, when the first colourful lanterns light up the Kurpark, there’s something very special in the air. Children hold their lanterns proudly, music drifts in from somewhere in the distance, and everywhere you look you see eyes sparkling with joy.
For many residents of Bad Homburg, this marks the start of one of the most wonderful festivals of the year.
For our family, however, the Lantern Festival means so much more.
My mother often tells me about her first Lantern Festival after World War II. It was 1949, and the Kurhaus had been completely destroyed, its ruins standing as a stark reminder in the town centre. They were makeshiftly covered with cloths and decorated to allow the wounds of the past to heal for four days.
People had been through hard times. This made the joy of finally being able to celebrate together again all the greater. There was hope, music, lights and, above all, the feeling that life was returning to some semblance of normality.
My mother has never forgotten that feeling, just as she has never forgotten the bar of chocolate she received personally from High Commissioner John Jay McCloy as a token of thanks.
When she founded our ballet school in 1966, it was therefore only natural to her that we should become part of this wonderful tradition.
For six decades now, our pupils have had the privilege of helping to organise the Lantern Festival year after year.
We have been present at the coronation of the Lantern Queen, her enthronement, her ceremonial farewell, and at numerous events surrounding the festival.
And every year, something happens that moves me anew.
The world is constantly changing, and our children today are growing up with smartphones, tablets and artificial intelligence.
But as soon as the Lantern Queen appears, exactly the same thing happens as it did decades ago:
Conversations fall silent, the children look up in awe and suddenly their eyes begin to shine.
Just like in the old days.
Perhaps that is the real secret of the Lantern Festival.
It brings generations together.
Grandparents tell their grandchildren stories of days gone by.
Parents recall their own childhoods.
Children proudly walk through the Kurpark with their lanterns, experiencing an evening that they may one day recount to their own children.
Every year, amidst thousands of tiny lights, a very special atmosphere takes hold.
Peaceful.
Joyful.
Warm.
A festival that shows just how wonderful community can be.
And this year, we too get to write a new little chapter in our history.
It will not only be a special moment for our school, but also a little journey through our history.
From the very first dancers in 1966 to the children of today.
From my mother, who experienced the Lantern Festival herself as a young girl in 1949, to the youngest little ballerinas, who may be standing by the roadside this year for the very first time, their eyes full of wonder.
Some traditions never go out of fashion; instead, they are passed down through the generations and thus kept alive.
And that is precisely why we are already looking forward to celebrating this year’s Lantern Festival together with you all.
✨ We wish everyone a wonderful Lantern Festival full of light, music, joy and children’s eyes sparkling with wonder.
Love,
Jasmin
