Mid-March Parade Update

let's see... what's happened in the last two weeks?

we have a choir director! halle frickin' lujah!! ian munroe is a music composition student and a seriously great guy who can tell us we sound like crap and not make us feel bad about it. right now we've got about a dozen folks in the choir, so we're developing some simple harmonies and do-op-py sounding things for our first song. it really is a blast, except for when ian has food poisoning. every week a few more folks join in, so hopefully we'll have a good crowd by parade night. newcomers of all levels of experience are welcome. we meet in the sanctuary on tuesdays from 6:00 - 7:00.

in the parade headquarters/ works on paper gallery, sharon gunther's class has been making some self-portrait lanterns loosely based on these:

and we've started paper casting the various and sundries: the quiet storm that is petra worked on the giant moon last week and might be working on the second lion as i type this...

which reminds me: i have to shout out to an endlessly generous volunteer, frank. he tirelessly ran our campaign to get radio flyer to donate some wagons for the event (charitable donations policy procedure: don't call us; we'll call you, so we're standing by with mid-level hopes). most recently, frank has committed to be "team weimaraner," and is casting paper dog heads in his free time. thanks, frank! you are the proverbial bomb.

in the works:

i just met with a south philly breakdancing club and we'll be talking about ways to incorporate their dancing into our walking. AND!! one of the dancers is in an improvisational marching band, so we're hoping to get some horns going on!

and back in brooklyn i'm working on the 10 foot tall huberta. i'm carving her out of blue styrofoam and i gotta say, right now she's kicking my butt. my studio is completely and entirely covered with blue foam snow, i've burned out the transformer on one hot wire cutter, broken a bandsaw blade and i've still got half a huberta to go.

i think that's it for the update. coming up this week:

choir practice in the sanctuary tuesday the 23rd at 6:00.

papier mache party (with snacks!) right after at 7:30 in the gallery on christian.

(let me know if you're coming!! nightprocession(at)gmail.com)

oh yeah! FREE lantern workshops every thursday in april! we'll make

a different lantern style or illuminated sculpture every week.

register through the fleisher website.