Brasstown After being closed during the pandemic, John C. Campbell Folk School held its first public event celebrating May Day and the school’s reopening with its annual parade and May Pole dances.
The May Day Parade started at the Festival Barn and traveled to the May Pole, which was in the open field by Davidson Hall. Puppets made by Paperhand Puppetry Intervention Directors, Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger were used in the parade for the first time.
The puppets were made by 14 students in a community workshop held the last week of April. Paperhand Puppetry Intervention was established in 1998 at the studio in Saxapahaw, making puppets out of papier-mâché, cardboard, bamboo, paints, cloth and other crafting supplies, according to the website paperhand.org.
Leading the parade was the “rainbow spirit” played by David Baker of Brasstown, who also performs as Mr. Autumn at the folk school’s popular Fall Festival.
Several puppets ranging from caterpillars, foxes, hummingbirds and people paraded down the walk path of the folk school property to the May Pole near Davidson Hall. May Day celebrations go way back in Celtic his-
tory, according to an article by Nanette Davidson on folkschool.org.
“Often a live tree was cut in the forest early one May morning and erected in the town square,” Davidson said in the article. “The ensuing dance was a way to plead for a fruitful harvest.”
The Brasstown Morris Dancers wove the multi-colored ribbons of the may pole in intricate dances and patterns, including one called the “spiderweb” that made the ribbons look like its name.
Once the ribbons were woven around the pole, dancers from Sticks in the Mud North West Border Morris and Rural Felicity Garland danced around the pole to the tune of fiddles, banjos and accordions. The Dame’s Rocket North West Clog Morris Team took to the pavement along with Sticks in the Mud dancers to showcase the British tradition of the dances.
“We are the only dance teams in the area who dance in the British tradition,” Davidson said at the event. “The Rural Felicity Garland Dancers have been together the longest with 35 years.”
The event ended with the dancers and puppets parading down Brasstown Road and part of nearby Settawig Road.