High turnoutat HOBT Community meeting

BY RONALD BURTON

The annual Mayday parade—a dazzling show of abundance—is always a huge undertaking, and can only be that much more so in leaner times. The parade, which takes place on Sunday, May 3, will be the 35th spring parade created by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, one of the great treasures of the Twin Cities.

On March 24 at 7:00 p.m., HOBT held its second and final public meeting before beginning production on the parade. The purpose of the meeting was to dialogue with the community about the ideas the theater staff developed since the first public meeting and to hear community feedback.

The lobby of the theater was filled to capacity, as nearly 100 people attended the meeting, overflowing from the provided seating onto back staircases and two floor rugs brought out to accommodate the high turnout. This was the biggest crowd for a public meeting in recent memory, and it was very diverse in age. At the beginning everyone present went around the circle, introduced themselves and stated their connection to the theater. Many were first-time participants in a theater event.

The first meeting, on Feb. 3, was held at the crest of optimism in the community and around the country following President Obama’s inauguration. Despite definite concerns about the economy—a large part of the theme for this year’s parade—sentiments voiced at the meeting were largely optimistic about the future and universally relieved about the change of administration. Between a faltering U.S. economy, Afghanistan troop increases and the AIG bonuses, the news in the weeks since has been anything but uplifting, but it would have been hard to tell, looking at the large crowd of eager community members looking to get involved.

The meeting started with the theater board’s presentation, and comments were held for the discussion afterwards. Sandy Spieler, the artistic director for HOBT, headed the meeting, but each of the parade’s sections was presented by a section leader (or leaders) responsible for its development. The presentation was less like a lecture, however, and more like story time. There were poems, props, a sing-along, people sitting cross-legged on the floor and, most important, a story.

The section leaders had started from the topics brought up in the first meeting—the labor movement, greening the economy, looking to the past for guidance, building human networks—and taken off in every direction at once. The spider seems to have taken the central spot symbolically, as a character representing tenacity, industriousness and network building. The five sections of the parade each have their own themes and imagery, but spiders, weaving, eggs/seeds, sprouts and fertile mud are central throughout.

The resulting collage of ideas and images is extremely varied and rich, but in the coming weeks will have to be refined and pared down for the sake of both practicality of production and narrative coherence. An opening is not yet decided for the parade, but possibilities mentioned by Sandy Spieler were spiders hatching out of an egg, or a reclaiming of the symbol of the eagle in its original spiritual significance in contrast to its use as a military and national symbol.
Highlights from the various sections included a tree bearing fruit of cultural wisdom in the first (which would be picked and handed to the audience), a giant (street-wide) spider covered in sprouting plants in the second, a Humpty Dumpty figure seated on a house of credit cards in the third, and square-dancing spiders and prayer hoops in the fourth. It is impossible to say which ideas will ultimately be included, given the amount of retooling and development the ideas are bound to undergo between now and Mayday. It is safe to say, however, that the final product will not disappoint.

Whatever work is needed, there will undoubtedly be many on hand to do it. The community response was excited and positive, and when at last the floor was opened for comments, the attendees obliged with questions, ideas, concerns and praise. The comments were both on practical matters of visualization and construction (how exactly does one show microbes processing feces into fertile soil?), and on conceptual matters (was the egg at the beginning the same as the Humpty Dumpty figure later on?). It was clear the attendees resonated with the ideas presented by the theater board and, given the thematic smorgasbord, there was something for everyone. Sandy Spieler encouraged everyone to connect with the section leader of the parade segment they wanted to work on or had ideas for. After the meeting ended officially at 9:00 p.m., the majority of the crowd stayed to talk and network with each other and the theater board.
If this meeting is any indication, Powderhorn residents have not been put out by economic woes; rather, the sense of community and of shared responsibility is stronger now than ever. The Heart of the Beast Theater is an example of effective community mobilization and all that it can achieve. If the country is looking for its way out of the economic crisis and a way to develop a more sustainable economy, it should look to people-powered organizations like the Heart of the Beast Theater, because the new green economy will be about getting more done with less as well as utilizing local resources, and they have been doing that for 35 years. Through community solidarity and labor, this year’s parade may one of HOBT’s best.