What Makes Saint Martin Come Marching In? On Facilitating Holy Play

In the study of urban events on the boundaries between the religious and the secular, an underdeveloped theme is the facilitation and performance of sacrality. Two questions should be asked: to what extent is an event ritualized and sacralized and how is religion involved? A further question is how these events succeed in performing the sacred. This article uses ethnographic research into the Saint Martin’s Day Parade in the Dutch city of Utrecht, a festive procession of children and parents, to clarify how the interplaying fields of religion, art, and, urban governance facilitate an event that may acquire the qualities of a “holy play,” depending on the fulfillment of performative requirements on one hand and the balance between sacralizing movements and particular strategies on the other.