by Kirby Lindsay, posted 11 June 2014
On Saturday, June 21st – the summer solstice – at 3p, the Fremont Arts Council wants all attention riveted by the annual Solstice Parade. To create a more memorable, ultra-creative spectacle, Parade organizers chose to fund, with the FAC Dave McKay Grant, ensembles that represent a higher, professional standard of art.
According to Kudra Migliaccio, Parade Communications, one of the strongest, ensembles, one that represents this higher standard, and one of the McKay Grant recipients, is ‘La Muerte de la Tea Party’ created by Kristie Maxim and Jana Rekosh. (See photos on Facebook.)
Stay True
Maxim feels a responsibility to satisfy the grant they were given, and fulfill the promise of their application. “Because of the grant, we want to execute as much of what we’ve said as possible,” she explained. Both creators work to hold clear their vision of their ensemble, even if new inspirations pop up along the way, they stay true to their promise. “When things go off course, we have to check,” Maxim said, “if we are saying large puppets, we have to have large puppets.”
“It’s an interesting balance,” Rekosh observed, “you want enough creative inspiration to shine through,” but discipline plays its part too. ‘La Muerte…’ will be the product of a whole team of artists, led by Maxim and Rekosh, and created by that community. Which does mean, “I lose sleep at night,” Maxim admitted, “is this going to happen the way I want it to?”
Where You Take Inspiration
“It’s an inspiration that comes to us,” Maxim said of their original ensemble vision. This year, the artists combined two ‘inspirations’: the Mexican celebration of Dia de los Muertos, and Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland. As Maxim recalled, she presented the two ideas to Rekosh separately, and “she said, ‘let’s just do them both!’”
According to Rekosh, “any good art has lots of layers and depths of meaning.” Translated, the ensemble name reads, ‘The Death of the Tea Party,’ but she advises viewers to watch and see. “This is a creative performance art piece,” Rekosh said, “that brings levels of meaning to it. Artists absorb a lot of things, and share them. It’s up to the public to bring their own interpretation.” Ultimately, Maxim explained, “it’s going to be something that gets people questioning.”
What The Tea Party Is All About’
As for what you will see on June 21st, ‘La Muerte de la Tea Party’ won’t be identifiable by a single, big, decorated float. Instead, this will be a cohesive, costumed ensemble, with a wildly wandering tea pot and tea cup (made from discarded industrial foam) on caster wheels carefully placed to guarantee the wild, random spiraling through the crowd of party-goers that Maxim wants. “We look at every element,” she explained about the ensemble in general, and the tea pot in particular, “Where are the wheels? In front, in the center, in a triangle? To make the pot and saucer move crazily. That’s what the tea party is all about!”
“When you have an artist’s discipline in your life, it translates to a greater scale,” Rekosh said. The Solstice Parade provides a very large canvas on which to create – and the FAC rule against words or logos makes the artists get more creative about their message. “I see it as performance art, not just a parade,” she said. “It’s not going to be evident to the audience,” what ‘La Muerte…’ is saying, Maxim observed, “because there are no words or stories.”
While both expressed some concern about the final result, Maxim and Rekosh still comfortably delegate creating parts of the ensemble to others. “They send us photos, and ask us questions,” Maxim said of one group that has worked at a remote location neither creator has been able to visit regularly. After all, Rekosh said, “we trust them.”
‘Everybody Converges’
“We don’t slap things together,” Maxim acknowledged, “we have integrity of design. Jana is about keeping it cohesive.” These are artists, but they are also planners and designers. “We have skills and creativity,” Rekosh said of their own talents, “and a high degree of perfectionism. My background is graphic design and branding,” Rekosh said, and Maxim observed, “both of us have that branding background.”
Once they had their inspiration, the ensemble directors reported, they created a presentation that shared with their collaborators the ‘brand’ they wanted for the ensemble. ‘Branding’ made it easier for volunteers to understand what fits, and what doesn’t. “Everybody converges,” Maxim said, of the volunteer costumers, sculptors, industrial designers, painters and other artists.
This will be Rekosh’s sixth Solstice Parade, and Maxim’s fifth, and each year they expand and further develop the community of volunteers they work with. “It’s community based,” Maxim said of the ensemble, “a strong community; our community that we created, inside the Fremont Arts Council community,” and Rekosh added, “which is part of a larger community,” that turns out each year to see art like ‘La Muerte de la Tea Party.’
‘Level Of Commitment’
Finding volunteers to work – for over a month and a half – on their vision has not posed problems. “I was telling friends of what I was doing, and I had three people helping me on Sunday,” Rekosh reported, “When you talk about it, and the level of involvement involved, it gets people excited to help.”
Maxim has volunteers who won’t walk the parade, but still want to create. On the other hand, they have volunteers who want to walk – or dance – through the parade but can’t help with the creation part. “That’s where the cards come in,” Rekosh said about the Wonderland-inspired playing cards, “if you just want to come in on the day of and wear a costume…”
“One of the first things we ask is, ‘what is your level of commitment?’” Maxim said about volunteers. They match people by their ability and interest, to projects, rather than expecting more (or less) than a volunteer wants to give. Also, Maxim doesn’t push for more people than she can successfully work with. “I don’t know that I could do more than 25 people,” she said about the team, “Managing can be very time consuming.”
The ‘La Muerte’ directors do build interest – and participation – through Facebook. This year they built a page – Summer Solstice Fremont – generic enough that they can add to it each year to catalogue their future ensembles. And they do plan to do more…
Each year, “we keep upping the game,” Maxim acknowledged. These artists got started on the Solstice Parade with the Ice Queens, one of the most memorable, most lauded and most grand ensembles of recent years. Last year the two collaborated on the SolTrain ensemble, and this year they expect to outdo all previous efforts, with the help of a team of artists that includes Noam Grundle, Clayton Smith, Brian Conner, Susan Picatti and Rebecca Maxim.
Look for ‘La Muerte de la Tea Party’ wandering wildly through the FAC Solstice Parade on June 21st at 3p. If you want to participate in this, or any other Solstice Parade ensemble, stop by the FAC Powerhouse any time before June 21st or contact parade@fremontartscouncil.org
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