May Day
May 1, 6:00am (dawn) to 7:30 am
Thornden Park
Each year the Thornden team hosts the May Day Celebration for Syracuse Morris and rapper teams, starting at 6am, this year at the Thornden Park water tower hill. These celebrations have been held, rain or shine, on May 1 every year since 1981.
The celebrations feature:
Morris dancing at dawn by Syracuse area teams. In recent years this has included Thornden Morris, Bassett Street Hounds, Snow Belt Morris, Heartwood Morris, and rapper sword dancing by Ribbonsteel Rapper Team.
Passing out May Day cake and May branches, and the singing of a May Day carol. This is usually the Furry Day Carol.
An original mumming play. Each year a play is written with a traditional mumming style plot of death and rebirth, but with our own local twist of topical humor, often on the current political scene.
A community maypole dance. The festivities conclude with the traditional winding of the maypole.
An amazing number of neighborhood people come out at 6am to watch this nonsense. Come and join us!