Hounds in the News
May Day! May Day!
Reprinted from Syracuse New Times, May 5, 1999.About 15 hours before a block party on Livingston Avenue spiraled into a showdown between Syracuse University students and city police, a kinder, gentler rite of spring unfolded at nearby Thornden Park. As a full moon slowly set over the Carrier Dome and the spring sun emerged from the eastern horizon, approximately 100 people watched a parade of dancers circle the Thornden Park water tower at the 17th annual May Day celebration. The event, held appropriately at dawn on May 1, bid a fanciful farewell to winter and hello to spring.
In case you missed it, the dancers looked very different from most of the people walking down an average Syracuse street. Donning costumes that included colorful coats covered with small strips of fabric and bold, maroon vests with matching stockings over white shirts and black pants, the Bassett Street Hounds and Ribbon Steel Rappers stuck out from the chilled crowd.
Those troupes, along with the Thornden Morris team, took turns performing original and traditional English dances. The sounds of a tin whistle and button accordion combined with the rhythmic jangling bells on their legs and the clash of sticks in their hands.
Between dances, the entertainers exchanged playful banter with the early risers cheering them on. Ribbon Steel Rapper Mike Miller warned the audience before an intricate sword dance that the performers were "seeking all the while to avoid an unpleasant fate at the edge of a cold, steel blade."
"Celebrations of spring go back before recorded history," Miller said after the show. "What we do started in England. Some of the Morris dances are mentioned in Shakespeare's plays."
Englishman and onlooker Simon Morrin liked what he saw. "It's a celebration of our community," Morrin said. "You get up early once a year and have some fun together." Artist Laurie Reeder echoed Morrin's thoughts. "For Syracuse, it's one of the best and common-sense traditions to welcome the sun because, in the winter, you rarely get to see the sun rise with your friends," she said.
Just before the dancers wove ribbons around the traditional Maypole to conclude the festivities, one of the performers offered a poetic summation of the event: "For despite our fears and worries, there is a new dawn every day, so let us rise, and celebrate the May!"