May Days

By Penny Kriebehl 

Each spring there are two and a half weeks that represent a window of time between one chunk of my Little Artshram work and the next. Spring and summer are definitely the seasons my daily duties of parade building and art-farming kick in.

This year, because of the growth in our Earth Day parade and our Summer Art-Farm Camps, I almost lost sight of this respite.

And what do I choose as my vacation getaway during that time? I drive 800 miles to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to help in the final stages of a parade building project on their annual May Day parade. This was their 33rd year of presenting this parade and festival.

My traveling companion was my good dog. I packed my car like the gyspy artist I am, leaving the back seat to Marley, and drove across the UP on Highway 2, through Wisconsin farmland, and merged with  the highwayed Twin Cities and Powderhorn Park Neighborhood.

This is a journey that I've taken almost yearly for the past decade.  An annual spring ritual of a ritual. To follow up our months of Grand Traverse parade building and be with another group of insane, creative artists, dancers, musicians and well-intentioned humans who like to dress themselves in papier-mache masks and costumes and sing praises to the earth with 50,000 people in an inner-city public park. To be submerged in such a HUGE peopled gathering is good medicine for my soul.

The folks at Heart of the Beast Theater (HOBT), a puppet and mask theatre that has been staging productions in Minneapolis since 1973, have been mentored our Earth Day Parade efforts -- and they do so in an epic and amazing fashion.

This year I arrived late in the week with good-dog Marley at my side,  having made the wise decision to play the part of spectator/observer rather than walk in the parade or perform in the Tree of Life Ceremony.  (Although I whipped up a fine School of Fish costume....) [ask]  The theater is located in a vibrant, mostly Latino, South Minneapolis neighborhood with a wonderful and authentic array of Mexican food choices on every block. 

The thought that comes to my mind, as I attempt to share my observations of the workings of their parade and ceremony is: "We lose ourselves in the purpose. And the purpose is enchantment. To enchant the soul."

As tricky as the notion of working toward and maintaining a level of "enchantment" is in the real world, and as I personally work to define my role and tasks in this life as an artist and caregiver of the Earth, I come back over and over again to the place of need: to celebrate, praise and be thankful.

And why not do it by winding down fifteen city blocks to a lovely, public green space to tell the story of the Tree of Life and the return of the Sun with really, big puppets?

Our own Earth Day parade follows HOBT's framework and building structure with a themed storytelling outline.  This year, the Mayday parade's theme was water - titled "Somos Agua" - "We are Water."  Remembering that last year and several other Earth Day parade years we have used the theme of our love of the Great Lakes and our concern about water bottling issues, I continue to be humbled and proud that our smaller, parade work connects with our big-sister in Minnesota who speaks to their water-love-relationship of the mighty Mississippi River.

Over the years of my mentorship, I've made friends with many of the HOBT-ers and always look forward to reconnecting to them. As we continue to define our parade-building roles and tasks locally, part of the wisdom that has been shared with me is deeply, understanding that the creation of a community gathering is many, many, MANY parts making a whole. That on the grand scale, individual contributions might look small, but they are truly huge and necessary parts. Each person throws their WHOLE selves into their piece of creative work.  And it is good to acknowledge how each person fits, contributes and effects the final outcome.

I've never seen a flow chart quite the size of the one I observed at the HOBT theater.  More like a "flood-chart".  I assume that it was written by Kathee Foran, the Executive Director of HOBT. It details every little and big thing, related to logistics, marketing, artist schedules and workshop details, parade day and park issues...etc., beginning in January and through the end of their event. I came away realizing that even for our smaller scale effort, we truly would benefit from a "Kathee" on our parade team, along with about 25 others to fill all of the above tasks.

As I continue to wear several organizing hats for our Earth Day Parade and this year in particular as more of a logistical person, it was a fascinating and enlightening read.  And likewise, with our efforts to make peace with the police and powers that be to actually be in the streets to parade, HOBT yearly troubleshoots and brainstorms ways to effectively and peacefully work through those glitches.

Another good idea is finding a person to fill the role of Stage Manager for the Ceremony story and performance, like Leslie who joined HOBT for the last month of parade-prep.  Leslie came from the west coast, where among other stage-managing and community-gathering projects, she works with the Olympia, Wash. "Procession of Species" parade. She had some great ideas about hosting pre-parade fundraising events that included a formal/black tie Puppet Fashion Show complete with a runway event! After attending a recent concert by our local songbird sweeties, Seth Bernard and Daisy May and Earthworkers at the City Opera House, it sure seems like TC could handle a winter Puppet Fashion Show in that beautiful space.

The artistic staff at HOBT is just amazingly fantastic, and every year each of those involved as section leaders and Ceremony performers, put on an incredible display of visual and performance artwork that just freaks me out. As part of the storyline this year, each parade section was water-titled and then properly illustrated in costume/masks, large puppets, floats and "flocks" of signature species.  The "All Life Begins in Water Section" (Toda La Vida Empieza en el Agua)  had a HUGE, swimming, pink, Baby puppet - operated by five people, and at least 130 costumed Frogs, with water-bottle eye-balls.  In the "Are You Thirsty Section" (Tienes Sed?) was a troupe of Water-Bottle Cheerleaders, with water-bottle skirts and pom-poms, that chided the spectators into being water-bottle "posers"-encouraging us into buying bottled water and feeling righteous about our consumerism.  And, in the "Water-Works Section" (El Uso de Agua) a Tyco Drum Core pushed Rain-barrel drums on wheels, throughout the parade route dressed as clowns with blue noses.

My hosts and friends, George (who yearly plays the role of "The Little Tree of Life") and Roy McBride, Lucinda Anderson and their daughter Laci were my representatives of longtime, devotees and volunteers of the Mayday festival, linking me to the tradition of their celebrating the coming-out of springtime in their community.  Laci, a tiny baby when I first met her family, is now at age 10, an experienced stilt-walker-costumed herself as a Lily-pad in the "One River, One Bowl, Two Hands, One Soul Section" (Un Rio, Un Tazon, Dos Manos, Un Alma).

Driving back across Wisconsin's expanse of agricultural farmland, Marley and I took our time, stopping often to check out a farm market and garden shop, take a walk, or visit the Lake Michigan shoreline along Green Bay and Highway 2 through Escanaba, and Naubinway across the Mackinac Bridge, around and down to Alanson-where we filled our bottles and jugs with water from the ever-flowing spring by the roadside-And, finally back into our Grand Traverse Bay homeland.

These wonderful story-telling parades, and most soul-enchanting community-gatherings just fill me to over-flowing and inspire me to continue my work.

I'd like to close, gratefully, for both our Traverse City Earth Day parade work and the Minneapolis MayDay parade work with a few water facts and a lovely quote:

And, from Yoko Ono:

"We're all water from different rivers...that's why it's so easy to meet."

Penny Krebiehl is the Director of Little Artshram, which fosters alternative education through a unique combination of permaculture principles, visual, musical and puppet artistry, and service to the natural world and inclusive social activism. For more information visit: www.littleartshram.org