Duane Busick catches 'The Welcome Table' parade on video

Videographer Duane Busick was at Malcolm Dalglish's The Welcome Table last Saturday night, and soon thereafter posted a video called "Malcolm's Parade" on You Tube. The Welcome Table was a remarkable, magical concert of original song and dance, with a wide emotional range: from the Dr. Seussian-ridiculous (a dance of deer and young hunter to the sounds of a huge marching bassoon ensemble, "Abbotts Bromley Horndance") to the sublime.

One of my favorite pieces was "The Brink," Malcolm's story of an unexpected all-night vigil in a human knot with other teen climbers on a mountain ledge in the Wyoming Wind River Range in late August of 1969. (You can hear the haunting beginning of this song here; it's on the CD Into the Sky.) He sang it Saturday night with Mia Dalglish, Lydia Elmer, and Moira Smiley; it gave me goose bumps, as it always does.

The evening ended with this Pie March, first performed in Hobart, Tasmania in July 2009. The words were changed for the Bloomington performance, and the theme adapted to celebrate pie, as a postscript to a Dalglish's "Pie R Pie." At the foot of sculptor Dale Enochs's limestone "Bloomington Banquet," volunteers served five kinds of Bloomingfoods pie to a crowd over 400 people. We gathered near Enochs's limestone and copper fire pit to eat, sing, and stave off the winter blues.

It's fantastic to see this little film catch some of the spirit of the night. Busick has been busy with less happy occasions recently, including a protest on our courthouse lawn of Governor Mitch Daniels's cuts to public education in Indiana. The Welcome Table came on the heels of a vote just the night before when the local school board eliminated teachers, special programs, media specialists (librarians), summer school, Honey Creek historic school, trips to Bradford Woods, and other important features of the Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC).

Busick is the youngest of 12 children, and was born and raised in Paoli, Indiana, home of Lost River Community Co-op. Both Duane and his wife, Kathy Loser, a librarian at Bloomington High School North, are dedicated advocates of education and the arts. Duane recently created a facebook page called Support Public Education in Monroe County. It has become a space for community conversation, activism, and strategic suggestions in response to over 3 million dollars in cuts of state aid to our school corporation. Thank you, Duane!

Welcome Miriam Rose...Here, in your honor, is The Welcome Table

I'm not sure what Naomi Dalglish is doing in this picture (besides singing, which I'm pretty sure she might be doing), but I'm not surprised to see her decked out in repurposed boxes. She's the daughter of composer Malcolm Dalglish, whose The Welcome Table will be performed tonight at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in Bloomington, Indiana. The show will feature original music and dance, followed by a parade on the the B-Line Trail to the Farmers' Market, where I'll be helping serve rhubarb, pumpkin, pecan and apple pies (by firelight), made by our bakers at Bloomingfoods. Here's more, with a picture by Sam Bartlett:

On Saturday night February 20th, a raucous and harmonious group of vocalists, percussive dancers, aerialists and bassoonists, with puppets by “Stuntologist” Sam Bartlett, will return Malcolm Dalglish’s The Welcome Table to the stage of the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.  

First introduced during the 2004 Lotus Festival, The Welcome Table is an indoor-outdoor extravaganza combining performance with a post-concert party – a parade down the B-Line Trail to a bonfire where Bloomingfoods pie will be served, next to Dale Enochs’s sculpture “A Bloomington Banquet,” at the Farmers Market. 

“The whole idea of The Welcome Table is to create a memorable, thrilling winter event, like gathering around a fire singing with friends after ice skating together on a crisp cold winter night,” says Dalglish. 

Known both locally and internationally for choral works that celebrate the natural world, Dalglish is a virtuoso of hammered dulcimer, spoons, bones, and chin music. Working with long-time collaborators Moira Smiley (of VOCO and VIDA fame) and composer Joshua Stephen Kartes, Dalglish draws on musical traditions as diverse as old-time American fiddle and dance music, early American and European sacred music, and African and Balkan song and dance. The grand finale to this show is “Pie R Pie,” a flour-flinging doo-wopping demonstration of making pie from windfall apples. Performers and audience will spill into the street and onto the trail, accompanied by an Malcolm’s marching Ooolitic band. 

The bakers at Bloomingfoods East and Near West Side will be preparing dozens of pies for The Welcome Table, at the request of Dalglish. “When I think of pie in Bloomington, I think of those Bloomingfoods pies, laid out on the wooden deli table in the East store, or served from the case on the Near West Side,” he said. Dalglish met with pie-makers Jamee DeFord and Jay Record to present them with a pie of his own – a cast iron-baked super-deep dish apple pie with sliced almonds hidden under the rim of its crust. Almost as passionate about baking pies as he is of making music, Dalglish has several specialties, using cast iron skillets, pizza dishes, and cookie sheets to produce a variety of crusts, toppings, flavors and textures.

Naomi won't be there (though her sister Mia will). Naomi is at home in North Carolina with her husband Michael, welcoming new baby Miriam Rose. Here's a beautiful photo of mother and baby. I like the way Miriam's little piebird body seems to imitate the guy with the pie and megaphone (her Grandpa) in The Welcome Table artwork. Welcome, indeed, spirited little songbird!

Away in a Manger: the Quirky Creche

I have always been enchanted by the fact that Jesus was born in a manger (did I mention that I was a home birth mom?). Perhaps it's the mental merging of the home birth experience with a love for diverse small farms...or something like that. One of my favorite children's books is Who is Coming to Our House?, by artist Ashley Wolff. She uses a linoleum block technique to illustrate Joseph Slate's story of animals anticipating the birth. Christ's name is never even used (though Joseph's and Mary's are): "Who is coming to our house?" "Someone, someone," says mouse. It is subtle and somehow more awe-some.

It's soon time to pack away the little array of Christmas decorations we have our on our sideboard. I decorated our little Hoosier cabin to make a quirky creche. Christ observes his own swaddling self from the vantage point of both childhood and young manhood, alongside other guests.

I was at the home of Malcolm Dalglish and Judy Klein the other day  – for years, with their daughters Naomi and Mia, they've created a mossy creche at the base of their gloriously old-fashioned Christmas tree. There are a couple of nuns standing at a respectful distance from the babe, and a Mexican women's chorus singing nearby, as well as a large rooster observing from a branch of the Christmas tree. Here is the scene, enhanced for a few numinous effects, including a multiplied, more emphatic, choral ensemble.(And I love the ghostly praying squirrel.)

Here's another sweet moment in their tree: a little Hickory bark skier. (And many thanks to Judy for coining the word "diversitrees" in relation to Susan Bee's paintings, and pointing out that this, too, is one.)

Sweet Sunday

Yesterday afternoon, a meeting with wonderful friends to talk about one of my favorite reads of the past year, Elizabeth Bowen's The House in Paris. Scones and real strawberries, sweet peas, cherry blossoms, a few minutes to sing together, Malcolm Dalglish's new processional for next February, Arts Week in Bloomington. (I wish I could really sing...I do love to listen.)

Stopped to talk for a minute with Ruth, next door, as she harvested kale from her front yard garden. Home of Scott Russell Sanders, author of the new book A Conservationist's Manifesto. Came home to a supper in our own backyard, a large salad and even the kids were here. Sav and Andreas are back from a week in Canada on an island, with friends.

Working, hatching plans to go to Pittsburgh later this week, for the 53rd annual gathering of CCMA, the Consumer Cooperatives Management Association. This is always fun: a chance to learn, reconnect, a tribal reunion.

Oh, and I'm twittering, too. Who knew? We'll see where that goes. You can find me at CCMA2009: I will twitter (in Twitsburgh) for natural foods and cooperation! I am also over there at elenabella. Come follow me, if you want to play with those kinds of messages.