And few are more colorful and creative than the Ecological City Procession that each year celebrates the Lower East Side’s ongoing efforts to find climate solutions
by Robin McMillan
Photos by Robin McMillan and Earth Celebrations
Come the second week of May, the annual “Ecological City — Procession for Climate Solutions” sees a cavalcade of huge papier-mache puppets, dancers and walkers clad in spectacular, climate-themed costumes, all winding their way from the Sixth Street Community Center to the East River Park. Along the way, the parade visits 21 sustainability sites, including 14 of the neighborhood’s community gardens.
This 10-mile “urban ecological pilgrimage” unfurls in a single day with a six-hour procession—but it takes a whole year to create. It involves Lower East Side artists, gardeners, and residents working together under the direction of artist and Earth Celebrations Founder/Director Felicia Young, the aim being to encourage and generate ecological and social change through the arts. Young created the Earth Celebrations non-profit in 1991, with the current celebration growing out of its “Save Our Gardens” initiative that applied similar cultural strategies to preserve neighborhood community gardens under threat from developers.
This year’s parade included a convergence with LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) Spring Awakening, which had been delayed two weeks because of rain. When the sun shone on May 10, the day’s events—to name just a few—included Art of Motion’s “Monarch & Spider” dance in El Sol Brilliante Garden; a poem by Marcia Newfield at Campos Garden that featured its history of sustainable urban agriculture, and gardeners Elizabeth Ruf and Karl Bateman presenting a song for bioswales—channels that collect stormwater runoff—in DeColores Community Yard. La Plaza Cultural’s performances included opera singer Eve Orenstein and dancers Shoko Tamai and Global Water Dances telling the story of the community gardens and the birth of climate solutions in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Gardeners at each stop offered flowers and rainwater collected there, while describing their climate-solution features, such as pollinators and water harvesting ponds. The procession also visited neighborhood sustainability sites, including the Earth School on East 6th Street, to celebrate their green roof, and the Sixth Street Community Center, to honor its rooftop bee farm and food justice programs (“food justice” is a strategy to ensure that everyone has equitable access to healthy, culturally appropriate and affordable food).
The procession concluded in the afternoon by visiting five sites along the East River Park waterfront with, among other performances, dancers addressing the impact of sea level rise.
Herewith, a look at this year’s pageant:
