Dust off your fairy wings and dig your May basket out of the attic — it’s time to revel in the return of spring. This Saturday brings May Day festivals to southern Maine complete with maypoles, parades and other seasonal celebrations.
Now in its 14th year, Kennebunk’s May Day Festival is distinguished by the Portland School of Ballet dancers, who perform a traditional maypole dance at noon in Lafayette Park.
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“The Portland School of Ballet comes with their instructor, and they do a demonstration and talk about May Day,” said organizer Linda Johnson. “Then Portland School of Ballet takes kids from the crowd and teaches them how to do the maypole.”
Four maypoles will be set up in the park, along with a face-painting station, a pottery wheel demonstration and a craft fair that runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
From 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., the Kennebunk Free Library offers a Faerie Crown Making workshop, and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Brick Store Museum provides a Make-Your-Own May Basket workshop.
The opening day of the Kennebunk Farmers Market starts at 8 a.m. on Main Street, and the popular parade begins at 1:30 p.m. on Water Street. The parade features roughly 300 Little Leaguers, Shoestring Theater puppets, Gym Dandies unicyclists, Shriners, classic cars and the Dunlap Highland Band.
“Every year it grows,” Johnson said of the festival. “If the weather’s good and dry and sunny, I’d say 1,000 people (will show up).”
Bath hosts the 10th annual Mayfair on Saturday, and one of the big draws is the city-wide yard sale. In addition to sales at private homes and locations throughout the city, bargain hunters should head to City Park from 8 a.m. to noon and visit the Big Tent Sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the municipal parking lot on Water Street.
Family activities, including maypole dancing, take place on the lawn of the Customs House from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The return of the Bath Farmers Market coincides with the festivities, and takes place from 8:30 a.m. to noon in Waterfront Park.
In Portland, the festival is smaller than the other two and more avant garde. Called The Sun + The Moon, the event starts at 6 p.m. in Fort Sumner Park on Munjoy Hill, where people are invited to bring picnic dinners, eat on the lawn and dance around the maypole. Three acts will provide live music in the park: Wesley Allen Hartley, A Severe Joy and Correspondences.
Trees in the park will be festooned with decorations, and sculptures made from wood and seaweed with be scattered throughout the park.
Between 7:30 and 8 p.m., as the sky grows dark, the picnics will be packed up and festival-goers can participate in a lighted procession to Zero Station in East Bayside. There, May Day partiers will get to sip Urban Farm Fermentory hard cider and dance to Hi Tiger, followed by DJ Che Ros.
But the details of the procession remain shrouded in mystery.
“I can’t give too much away about (the procession) at the moment,” said organizer Will Ethridge of organizer Eternal Otter Records. “We want there to be a few surprises.”
Staff Writer Avery Yale Kamila can be contacted at 791-6297 or at:
akamila@pressherald.com
Twitter: AveryYaleKamila
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