Earth Day Events Start making your costume now for April 23 parade

April 13, 2005

Funny how spring sunshine seems to put us all into overdrive. Traverse City’s Art Center is no exception -- the creativity there is in full bloom with a colorful project called the Earth Day Parade and Festival.
The public is invited to participate every Tuesday and Thursday from 6-9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday afternoon from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., until Saturday, April 23 when the parade bounces downtown. The Center, at the corner of 11th and Elmwood, will be a bustling beehive. The Center’s community members -- worker bees -- will be doing everything from stilt-walking to rainstick-making, and all the hot gluing, duct-taping, paper-macheing, and painting inbetween. And of course, they’ll all be hoping it won’t rain on the 23rd.
The public is invited to join in the Earth Day workshops to create costumes and masks for the parade. There is a suggested donation (for each mask/costume) of $5, and you may bring in your own materials or use the ones provided. There are plenty of supplies for anyone who wants to participate, and you will be able to keep whatever you make.

16-YEAR HISTORY
The kick-off event for Earth Day 2005 was a variety show and community dinner. Fittingly titled, Bring in the Spring, five acts performed for a full house of well-fed people and helped raise $800 for Earth Day. That was just the beginning.
Spring, as a fresh start after a monochromatic winter, reminds us that nature can be described with more words than “harsh” and “unforgiving.” “Alive” is one of them; so are “ongoing” and “communal.” These words are what the Earth Day Parade has embodied for the last 16 years in Traverse City.
What started as a smaller “All Species Parade” in 1989 has become a storytelling parade with Little Artshram of Leelanau County, Rythmic Adventures and an Earth Day General Council, but the point of it all remains the same. The goals of the parade are to “bridge the arts, the environment, and our local community,” but to do so in a sustainable way.
Even though the parade happens once a year, the relationships and cultural exchange that take place are longer lasting.
“It’s not just about a day,” affirms Penny Krebiehl, Earth Day artistic director. “It’s about bringing the community together as a part of the process. We want to draw it out all year.”

GROWING A PARADE
Last year, over 200 people participated in the parade, but there were far fewer at the workshops actually doing the constructing. This year, Krebiehl alone is working with 200 kids in area schools, and the group is doing a better job at getting the word out. Plus, many of last year’s participants -- and even spectators -- are eager to get involved again. Lou Blouin, who took part in the festivities last year, expressed why he’s back again, this time in a bigger way as a section leader: “It’s really flippin’ fun!”
This year, the parade theme is Earth Paths and Patterns, and the individual sections are air, water, earth, fire and center. Each section will be headed by a section leader and parade marshal and they will decide what kind of path or pattern their section will play out, be it by flocking, branching, spiraling, scattering, flowing, overlapping, meandering, rippling, meshing, or any other way plants and animals interact with their surroundings.
Parade spectators are by no means passive. Music shakers will be passed out to onlookers so they can chime in and inbetween each parade section a giant hoop will roll and spectators will be encouraged to jump through.
There are rules to this big celebration in place for safety and for preservation of the goals. The rules are: no live pets, no motors, no words. No motors because it is better for the environment to be people-propelled instead of using gas; and no pets because animals don’t know how to use a port-a-potty and can be distracting.
The group decided to establish a no words policy for a few reasons. Primarily, words are human inventions and this parade is about what links us with nature, not what sets us apart. The challenge of a wordless parade creates new opportunities for self expression beyond the verbal.
For Earth Day music director DeDe Alderman, the question becomes, “How do we express our ideas via music?” Her answer is with six musical groups open to anyone. The Bellowin’ Brass Band, Wispy String Band, Paths and Patterns Orchestra, Red Hot Samba Fire Brigade, Conch Shell Cacophony, and Impromptu Earth Orchestra will provide all the rhythm and music a parade could ask for. “All you need to do is come to one rehearsal and you’re a part of it,” she promises. “Just show up on the 23rd ready to play.”

For more info and a calendar of workshops, go to www.littleartshram.org or contact Penny Krebiehl at Little Artshram, 231-228-3493, littleartshram@hotmail.com, or DeDe Alderman, Rhythmic Adventures, 231-276-2328, rhythmicadv@hotmail.com

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Join the Parade
The Earth Day Parade route will begin with a line-up at Central Grade School in Traverse City at 8th & Pine. It starts on 8th, heading east, then turns left on Union, right on State, left on Park, left on Front, left back to Union and right on 6th St. to Hannah Park, where the potluck and festival will be held.
The parade line-up begins at 12 noon on Saturday,
April 23, with the parade heading down 8th at 1 p.m.
To be in the parade all you have to do is show up, wearing comfortable clothes to fit the weather. Extra costumes and puppets will be available, as well as musical instruments for people to use.

You too can ‘Rock the Boat’
While making your Earth Day plans, be sure to pencil in a “Rock the Boat” celebration of the earth, including music, talks, and general fun-making, kicking off at 5 p.m., Sunday, April 24, at the UAW Hall in Traverse City.
Stephanie Mills, the Maple City author of three books and many articles on the environment, will be the keynote speaker at the event, followed by others from the Sierra Club, TCTV Channel 2, Grand Traverse Solid Waste Resource Recovery, and the Traverse Bay Green Party, which is the sponsor of the fourth “Rock the Boat” concert and teach-in. Mills’ books include “Epicurean Simplicity,” “In Praise of Nature,” “In Service of the Wild” and “Whatever Happened to Ecology?’’ among others.
Featured bands will include Rhythmic Adventures, Spit for Athena and others to be announced.
“Have fun while you hear what can be done to save the earth,” says Tom Mair, Green Party spokesperson, and member of the City of Traverse City Parks and Recreation Committee, summing up the evening.
Admission to “Rock the Boat” will be a $5 donation with food and beverages available. The hall is located at Rose and Hanna Streets.