Anniversaries Part II: OMNIA

It was 30 years ago today, Sgt. Steve taught the band to play…

We’ve been going in and out of style, but we’re guaranteed to raise a smile… ;-)

OMNIA Band 1996,

I want to take the time to tell and show you a bit about what the band you know as OMNIA actually is…

During the course of the next year we will be putting a lot of old OMNIA material online… stuff no-one has ever seen… pictures, songs and videos of the long and winding road I (we) have wandered through 30 long summers and winters of making music to honour the Natural world and to teach the soul about things that matter.

It all started In a old squatted 70’s school building in the middle of an old park in the city of Utrecht, Holland…in a huge, messy chaos art-filled classroom full of art-materials, easels and benches, there was the “Temple of Chaos” art-workshop of “Chaos in Motion”.

A workshop space my friends and I had turned into a ritual working room for the free flow and expression of art in its widest sense.

(Big octagram on the floor, copious runes and skeletons all over the place…you know…the words “eldrich” or “occult” come to mind, just imagine it yourself…but add more junk because it was of course a squat).

In this place a group of friends (all artists) who had either worked professionally as actors in historical re-enactment or who were just really fascinated by our European Celtic/Germanic and Roman past decided to form a historical Gallo-Roman re-enactment group.

Roman Music, Zaza, Joyce, Sic and Noël, 1996

We would work for museums and historical re-enactment villages and sites and bring shows of Music, Combat and Religious Sacrificial rites to teach people about our amazing iron-age history etc

(yeah…I still believed in the fake History narrative back then)

and because the motto of our Art-Foundation was :

OMNIA CHAOS EST = “everything is chaos”

we called this monster OMNIA

(meaning “everything” in Latin and “hope” or “wish” in Arabic)

Gladiator Show, Luka, and Miez, 1998

There were no re-enactment stores or historical clothing and weaponry online shops in those happy days before the big internet enslavement.

So we were forced to make all our own gear, clothing, shoes, weapons, instruments, props etc. by ourselves, by hand, in our own art-workshop.

(we got pretty good at it after a while)

We sifted through all the historical material available, we researched all we could find, we lived, ate and acted like the ancient ideals we aspired to …

then we worked it into our first Historical world of OMNIA.

We played our first real try-out Gladiator fight and Gallo- Roman music performance for the Toni Boltini circus in spring 1996.

And by August we were ready to tackle our first full show for a huge museum in Flanders, Belgium and we made a big impression on the living-history stage, we were invited all over the place to play before the crowds at archeological events and the historical neo-celtic pagan music started flowing for the first time…spreading it’s seeds in the heart of those who listened.

As a theatre group we had up 14 people for big historical performances, but most were not so musically inclined as the core group. The first real “Band” formation in OMNIA in 1996 was:

Steve “Sicula” Evans (all melody instruments, vocals and ankle bells)

Louis “Luka” Aubri (percussion and vocals)

Zaza “Rufia” van Konigsbrugge (percussion and dance)

Noël “Caicus” Franken (percussion and vocals)

Misja “Barca” van Laatum (percussion and vocals)

Joyce “Faustina” Hellendoorn (percussion and vocals)

They were to make music and record the first cd of

historical gallo-roman pagan music “Sine Missione I”.

All of us were volunteers in this endeavour… there was no money involved, only love of history, performance and each other.

Roman Lady Editor Faustina with Body Guard, 1997

Satyr Sic, 1996

Roman Offering Ceremony, Zaza, Miez Tijn (and damn what was her name again? I'm getting old!), Archeon, 1997

Gladiators Luka and Sic, Pfalzmuseum Speyer, 1999

Celtic Combat, Luka and Sic, 1999

MC Sic, and Luka with Legio Gemina, Celtic vs Roman Combat 1998

OMNIA Elf Fantasy Fair 2002, Sic, Luka, Mirjam and Suzanne

OMNIA's 1st Wickerman Ceremony, Belgium, 1999

People need to eat, so sadly after a few years all of the group “got jobs” and had no time to follow their passion without pay… the big group dwindled, others joined but left again…

OMNIA Line-up 2001

The big historical re-enactment group OMNIA basically ceased to exist in 2002.

BUT

Luka and me found ourselves alone with our passion for our neo-Celtic PaganFolk, we were gripped by the new music that was flowing out of OMNIA but couldn’t put it on a stage anymore with just us two!

It seemed game-over… then a miracle happened…

But more about that in a next blog! ;-)

Greenthingz!

Steve Sic