March 24, 2004
Parade plans honor Earth
Art Center presents workshops to prepare for Earth Day parade
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
The Earth Day parade is back.
Scheduled for Saturday, April 24, a number of community organizations are busy planning and creating to bring the annual celebration of Earth Day back to the streets of Traverse City. Sunday, the Earth Day Council kicked off efforts to create the parade and celebration with a feast of activities at the Art Center of Traverse City. Music, drumming, face painting and fun were part of the combined celebration of the beginning of spring and the start of the Earth Day project.
The Art Center of Traverse City offered space to the council for a variety of meetings, seminars and planning sessions scheduled between now and Earth Day. This headquarters has been dubbed the Earth Day Community Arts Studio and Earth Day parade organizers welcome the public to participate. A series of public workshops covering topics ranging from worm composting to creative movement and dance to drumming will be held at the studio between now and Earth Day.
The parade is a visual event, telling a story through movement that follows three simple rules: no motorized vehicles, no pets and no words. A community happening, organizers are determined to draw in as many people to help out as possible.
"We invite everyone to get involved in the fun preparation for the Earth Day Parade," said Penny Krebiehl, owner of Little Artshram and the artistic director of the parade.
This year as in previous years, Krebiehl and other parade organizers are tapping area students for help creating the parade. Krebiehl will work with students at Traverse City High School, Central Grade School, Old Mission Peninsula School and Glen Lake Elementary School.
Since February, the students at Traverse City High School have helped her choose the parade's theme of Home. All aspects of the puppets, music, theater and dance will relate to that theme and students are helping her craft the necessary props for the event.
These students are also making the prototypes of some of the larger puppets as well as making masks. Krebiehl noted that this project is drawing on other area artists to work with these students including poet Terry Wooten and dancer Hughthir White.
"The students have been asked to fill in the framework of the storytelling in the parade," noted Krebiehl of her artist apprentices.
Students at Glen Lake Schools are making hand puppets and students at Central Grade School are making rattles and masks.
Tiffany Davis, an eleventh grade student at Traverse City High School, attended the kick-off event Sunday and is pleased to help create the Earth Day Parade.
"We are making masks and making the whole idea of the parade," she said. "We're the artist apprentices there and only five of us have been doing the parade so now we need more people."
Davis' friend and classmate Tiffany Brown noted that working on the Earth Day Parade has made her aware of the event, something that went below her radar in the past.
"I'd never thought about Earth Day before, never celebrated it before," Brown said. "My biggest challenge in the whole thing is thinking up ideas that have never been thought of before."
Earth Day workshops open to the public begin the week of March 23 and run through April 22 at the Art Center of Traverse City. They will be held every Tuesday and Thursday evening from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. and on Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m. For more information on the workshops or the Earth Day Parade, call Penny Krebiehl at 228-3943 or Dede Cronin, the parade's musical director, at 276-2328.