On Saturday, September 28, 2024, Allen Centennial Garden hosted its annual Fall Harvest Festival, which included music, dance, student presentations, workshops, and a seed swap. The theme, Enchanted Ground, focused on the emotional connections we make with the natural world. This year, as in years past, Norden House and the Sustaining Scandinavian Folk Arts in the Upper Midwest project helped organize a variety of events in collaboration with Allen Centennial Garden. Much of our work focuses on various forms of outreach: public productions, public programming—but we also do quite a bit of work with students, working to ensure that the students we teach on campus also have a chance to meet and work with the artists we collaborate with.
Students from Scott Mellor’s Norden House class helped to decorate and raise a majstång, prepared and produced flower crowns, and then sang and danced around the maypole. Of course, dancing and singing around a maypole is traditionally done at midsummer in Sweden (as is creating a flower crown with seven different types of flowers that will eventually be put under your pillow in hopes that you will dream about the person you will marry) not in September. The Harvest Festival, though, provided a space to introduce the tradition to a students who tend to not be on campus during midsummer while recognizing the deep connections that traditions like these have with the environment. Plus, sometimes pretending to be a frog while dancing around a big green pole is exactly what you need to do after a long week of classes.
In addition to singing and dancing, festival attendees had an opportunity to work with their hands. Our project hosted Mary Erickson, a himmeli-maker from Mt. Iron, Minnesota. For four hours, over 100 people stopped by to watch, learn, and make their own himmeli. Himmeli, coming from the Swedish word “himmel” meaning “sky” or “heaven,” is a traditional straw ornament. Rye straw, brought together with thread to create geometric shapes, create beautiful mobiles or individual ornaments that, once hung from the ceiling, seem to be perpetually swaying, swinging, spinning, with the rhythms of a person’s home.
Erickson is a master himmeli maker who studied with Elna Hietala in Minnesota and Eija Koski in Finland. Now a teacher herself, Mary recruited three students from Marcus Cederström’s Cultures of Sustainability FIG class to learn the craft and serve as short-term apprentices. These students made their own himmeli, demonstrated the craft for others, and also helped teach the scores of people who stopped by to chat with Mary.
Wrapping up a full day, the Scandinavian-American Old-time Dance Music Ensemble and 2022 Musician-in-Residence Beth Rotto both performed at the annual bowery dance bringing together students and community members for another night filled with schottisches, waltzes, and polkas.
Allen Centennial Garden is a gem on our campus and we are always so lucky and thankful for any and all opportunities to partner with Dr. Reba Luiken and Ryan Dostal at the Garden.