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We spent the day at the Powderhorn May Day Festival.
An explanation of the event, for those unfamiliar with it: each year (for the last 32), the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theater puts on a parade followed by a pageant in Powderhorn Park on the first Sunday in May. It is pagan, medieval, unapologetically political and incredibly cool. "Parade," for me, summons up images of motorized floats with people waving at the crowd; Mayday is nothing like that. First, nothing in the parade is motorized; it is all powered by human beings, pushing or pulling or pedaling. Second, the costumes are all handmade, often improvised with recycled materials. The people in the parade do wave, though, and yell "Happy Mayday!" There are giant puppets, and smaller puppets, and paper mache masks, and costumes. This year there were giant Chinese-style dragons representing wind energy and solar energy, and a giant whale puppet carried by multiple people, and tiny Chinese dragon puppets that acted like dogs wanting to be patted. There were dancing ravens and dancing skeletons, and people on stilts, including a man with springy stilts to let him hop.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pegkerr's daughters were in the parade: Fiona was a banned book (the American Heritage Dictionary) and Delia was a blue giraffe. There were also elephants, and a man dressed as Elvis but with an elephant trunk, and the words "GANELVIS" on the back of his white shirt.
After the main parade (there's a banner at the end to show you the break point) there's the "Free Speech Section," which is usually well worth watching; it includes community organizations, politicians handing out stickers and literature, Morris dancers, Aztec dancers, Drill Teams, Hare Krishnas, Falun Gong, peace protestors, you name it. There used to be this group called the Kale People who would walk along wearing nothing but big bunches of kale tied over the naughty bits, but I haven't seen them in years. (More's the pity.)
The parade goes down Bloomington Avenue to Powderhorn Park. We met up withspringbok1 just north of the bridge over the Greenway. The weather this year was fabulous: sunny and warm though not too hot. (Last year it snowed. Last year's weather sucked.)
During the Free Speech section, Gubernatorial candidate Becky Lourey came over to shake our hands and introduce herself. I told her that I'd caucused for her at my Senate District convention and she gave me a hug.
The weather was good enough this year that we went to the pageant, as well. The pageant varies from year to year, but always includes the Sun paddling across Lake Powderhorn to the shores of the pageant site and coming ashore, a giant Tree of Life Maypole being raised up and then danced around, and everyone present singing "You Are My Sunshine."
This parade is one of my favorite things about Minneapolis.
An explanation of the event, for those unfamiliar with it: each year (for the last 32), the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theater puts on a parade followed by a pageant in Powderhorn Park on the first Sunday in May. It is pagan, medieval, unapologetically political and incredibly cool. "Parade," for me, summons up images of motorized floats with people waving at the crowd; Mayday is nothing like that. First, nothing in the parade is motorized; it is all powered by human beings, pushing or pulling or pedaling. Second, the costumes are all handmade, often improvised with recycled materials. The people in the parade do wave, though, and yell "Happy Mayday!" There are giant puppets, and smaller puppets, and paper mache masks, and costumes. This year there were giant Chinese-style dragons representing wind energy and solar energy, and a giant whale puppet carried by multiple people, and tiny Chinese dragon puppets that acted like dogs wanting to be patted. There were dancing ravens and dancing skeletons, and people on stilts, including a man with springy stilts to let him hop.
pegkerr's daughters were in the parade: Fiona was a banned book (the American Heritage Dictionary) and Delia was a blue giraffe. There were also elephants, and a man dressed as Elvis but with an elephant trunk, and the words "GANELVIS" on the back of his white shirt.After the main parade (there's a banner at the end to show you the break point) there's the "Free Speech Section," which is usually well worth watching; it includes community organizations, politicians handing out stickers and literature, Morris dancers, Aztec dancers, Drill Teams, Hare Krishnas, Falun Gong, peace protestors, you name it. There used to be this group called the Kale People who would walk along wearing nothing but big bunches of kale tied over the naughty bits, but I haven't seen them in years. (More's the pity.)
The parade goes down Bloomington Avenue to Powderhorn Park. We met up with
springbok1 just north of the bridge over the Greenway. The weather this year was fabulous: sunny and warm though not too hot. (Last year it snowed. Last year's weather sucked.) During the Free Speech section, Gubernatorial candidate Becky Lourey came over to shake our hands and introduce herself. I told her that I'd caucused for her at my Senate District convention and she gave me a hug.
The weather was good enough this year that we went to the pageant, as well. The pageant varies from year to year, but always includes the Sun paddling across Lake Powderhorn to the shores of the pageant site and coming ashore, a giant Tree of Life Maypole being raised up and then danced around, and everyone present singing "You Are My Sunshine."
This parade is one of my favorite things about Minneapolis.
