Earlier today I attended the annual Mayday Parade in Minneapolis. No longer planned and presented by the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, both the Parade and the Tree of Life Ceremony that follows it continue to embody story and ritual at their best – though with a difference now.
Following is how the official Mayday website describes this difference.
Mayday is evolving!
For 50 years, South Minneapolis has celebrated Mayday with an annual parade, ceremony and festival to honor the coming of Spring on the first Sunday in May.
Our Mayday celebration began in 1974, initiated and shepherded by In the Heart of the Beast Theatre (HOBT) as an annual event with broad community participation. For nearly 50 years HOBT enacted the Mayday Parade, the Tree of Life Ceremony, and the Festival in Powderhorn Park. In April 2023, HOBT announced that it would no longer produce Mayday, and “released it” to the community.
Now, in 2025, there is no single organization producing Mayday; the Parade is built by decentralized community groups hosting puppet-making workshops and the Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts is sponsoring an artistic cohort and workshops to create the Tree of Life Ceremony.
In the past, artists at In the Heart of the Beast Theater (HOBT) envisioned a theme for the parade and ceremony through community conversations, and then opened the doors for hundreds of community members to gather during the month of April at HOBT to bring the theme to life with spectacular puppets and music.
Today, the creation of parade puppets is decentralized with spectacular and free-flowing visions created in basements, garages, studios, schools, and backyards.
Festivities in Powderhorn Park following the Parade will be quite different than in HOBT years, with no organized food trucks or large music stages. You are encouraged to bring picnics and enjoy the beautiful park.
See also the previous Mayday posts at Wild Reed:
2018
• Photo of the Day – May 6, 2018
• “What You Feed, Grows! (It’s All About Love)” – Part 1
• “What You Feed, Grows! (It’s All About Love)” – Part 2
2017
• Photo of the Day – May 7, 2017
• “Imagine, Heal, Resist” – Part 1
• “Imagine, Heal, Resist” – Part 2
2016
• “Our New Possibility”: Photo of the Day – May 1, 2016
• “Radical Returnings” – Part 1
• “Radical Returnings” – Part 2
2015
• “Black Is Sacred”: Photo of the Day – May 3, 2015
• “And Still We Rise!” – Part I
• “And Still We Rise!” – Part II
2014
• Mystics of Wonder, Agents of Change
• “The Spiritual Dialectic of WONDER?!”
2013
• See the World!
2012
• The End of the World as We Know It
2010
• “Uproar!” on the Streets of South Minneapolis – Part 1
• “Uproar!” on the Streets of South Minneapolis – Part 2
2009
• Getting Started
• Celebrating Our Common Treasury
2008
• Mayday and a “New Bridge”
2006
• The Time is Now!
Images: Michael J. Bayly.
No comments:
Post a Comment