Newspapers / Salem College Student Newspaper / May 6, 1938, edition 1 / Page 4
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Page Four. THE SALEMITE Friday, May 6, 1938. f lEAVTILIRIEjf - If IE AT IL IE jT m ^ SALEM MAY DAY PUNS COMPLETE The scene for Salem’s May Day of this year is an English garden on April 30, 1938. Cecilia, an English girl, is reading a book, when a group jat other girls come in, talking and laughing. Cecilia; Oh, hello. It must be later than I thought. I’ve been, reading about bow the Greeks cele- b'ated May Day. Rosalind: Reallyt What a queer picture! Who are they? ■Cecilia; They are women of Thebes going to the mountain revels in honor of — wait a minute — Dionysius. “In the cold moist glens of Parnas.sus, Attica, and mountains of Asia Minor, worshippers of the god of wine, followed by a wild chorus of nymphs and Satyrs, held rites; goats and fauns were sacri ficed. It was the primitive belief that the wild storms of late winter set free spirits whiclx encourage vegetation.” And tjhat was how May Day started. Audrye; And is that a woman of Thebes f Oecilia: No; you sec, later the other Grreck-j held celeb.'ations, too^, and cKose t).e fairest maiden to rule over the «:ay. (Two giil.^ have been playing with a hoop and have wandetei over to a mushroom }>eside the brook. A small g/Hn;c raises his head and looks at them.) Elizabeth: They must have been lovely ladies. Cecilia': I should like to have seen them. Rosalind: So should I. Gnome: Pardon me, young ladies. I have been eavesdropping, I con fess. If you would like to see a Greek celebration of Muy Day. may be we can arrange it. Vdu must promise not to speak a word until I tell you; that would break contact. (He goes to a large clock of years and turns it back to 900 B. C. He sits on the mushroom; and the girls sit down too.) (A group of about twenty Grecian-clothed people come in.) Gnome; You see, they have se lected the fairest maid in Athens and have come to celebrate before her and her court. She is coming now. (Heralds, flower-girls, and the court precede the queen down the hill, (hie of the group comes over before the queen with a flute and kneels.) Gnome: Now they are- going to give a dramatization of Odysseus among the Phoenicians. You re member the story — Odysseus find» himself on the shore of King Alcin- ous’ kingdom and lies down to sleep. Nausicae, the daughter of King Al- cinous, goes to the river to wash the clothes. (Nausicae comes in with six maid ens and a cart filled with dainties. They begin washing and then lay the clothes out to dry. Odysseus is asleep on the right. The seven girls sit down to their midday meal; later four of them get up and dance, and finally Nausicae and the other two join them and play ball. The ball rolls over to where Odysseus sleeps; ho wakes; the maidens flee, but Nau- sieae stays and gives him raiment, food, and drink. There is another dunce, with large ballons, before they leave in the cart and afoot. They come back and bow before the queen who acknowledges them, they begin to back off-stage slowly.) Cecilia: Oh. that was lovely — but must they got Gnome; Yes, it’s very late! Audrye: Mayn’t they stay just a bit longer and see how 'we celebrate May Dayt Gnome: Well — yes; they shaH see your May-pole dance. No one who has not been “be hind scenes” hefore May Day caa ever realize the endless work a»d energy and time and thought aad trouMe thxt moat go into this hoar of entertainment for 5,000 peop'Ie that watch Salem’s May Day each year. There are seven main com mittees that actually plan for the celebration, besides the j>ageant com mittee itself and several others that do their work throughout the year. Shortly before May the committees for costumes, dances, flowers, prop erties, and dress, must have their work completed; and on May Day the program committee does its work. Of course, everything centers on the pageant, and it must be finished long beforehand. Margaret Briggs wrote it this year and has been the guiding hand behind all of the cele bration this May of the old custom. Four dances add grace and beauty to the scene in the garden. Besides the May Pole dance, thero are three Grecian dances — a scarf dance, a fountain dance, and a solo danee by Willena Couch. There are six people in the scarf dance; four in the foun tain one, and twelve in the May Pole dance. These girls started practicing a month ago with Edith Rose and Miss Grace Carpenter. Mr. KerenofE, a Russian dancing teacher in Greens boro, created and taught all of the dances except the May-Pole one. The music this year was orchestra ted by B. C. Dunford, and he also composed the processional and music LEFT TO BIGHT, MISS VIRGINIA LE^*MA Y* QuFen AITO ' MISS AIEREDITH IIOLDERBY MAID OF HONOR IN SALEM’S ELEVENTH MAY DAY FESTIVITY. PREVIEW OF TOMORROW’S MAY COURT JOURWAI.-SRPmN’EIj STAFF PHOTO. TALKING ABOUT MAY DAY ABE SOME OP THE FAIR MAIDENS OF THE COURT. LEFT TO RIGHT, MARY LIB WALSTON, CORNELIA WOLFE, DOROTHY WYATT, FRANCES BRITT, MARY GRAY THOMPSON AND NELL HOLT AS WE SEE THEM BEFORE MAY DAY EXCITED ABOUT MAY DAY, THESE COURT BEAUTIES SMILE POE THE BIRDIE. LEFT TO’ RIGHT THEY ARE MARTHA RAWLINGS, BILL FULTON, PEGGY JONES, BETTY SCXXPT, MARY LOUISE McCLUNG AND MILDRED KELLY. ^ for the solo dance of the pageant; he has been doing his part for May Day for perhaps two mouths. Salem’s glee club is to sing the May Day carol at the end of the pageant, and a twenty-two piece orchestra with two pianos will furnish the instru mental music. Two weeks before Easter the Home Economies Club began its project of costumes which the Costume commit tee had already planned. The Home Economics majors were divided into five groups, each under the direction of a committee member. Charlotte King helped on all of the groups, and is still working on “odds and ends” of the forty-some costumes. There were two groups for danee costumes, one for warrior clothes, another for men’s garments, and a fifth for women’s outdoor dresses. There were also heralds and pages and flower- girls to be dressed, ad the only cos tumes which could be used from previous years were the May-Pole dancers’ dresses. There were several individual csotumes, too — an Ionic chiton and a Doric one, and Mary Woodruff’s green gnome suit of bol ero, skirt, long pants, and cap. A few of those well-known hockey tunics of our seniors will be used, and some dyed hockey pants will go under the dancers ’ dresses. Mrs. Meinung helped the costume com mittee to calculate at first, but Charlotte’s efficiency has needed lit tle other direction. The May Pole dresses are the only ones of the cos tumes which are in pastel shades. Peoples of ancient times used herb- dyes and consequently could have no pastel colors; so Salem’s May Day this year is very vivid with royal and navy blue, purple, plum, gold, brick red, blue-green, vermilion, rust, and white. When we think of the pageant cos tumes, we think too of the court dresses. Virginia Lee’s dress is of white lace with an eleven-yard train, leg-of-mutton sleeves, a stand-up collar, and a square neck with a slight point. Meredith Holderby’s dress is brilliant jade green; it has an accordion-pleated skirt and a pleated bodice with wings across the neck which reach nearly to the ground. Like the twelve dresses of the attendants, the maid-of-honor’s has a low “V” neck. Margaret Briggs drew sketches of the type dresses that she liked for her May Day, and Miss Montaldo took the sketches to New York and had sam ple dresses made from them; so the very vivid blue, American Beauty red, and yellow dresses are Briggs- Originals. They have redingote skirts and very full bodices with pointed girdles; There are wings on the shoulders and a row of cov ered buttons in the small of the back below the split-back. These dresses were begun in January and were all here before Easter. Flowers, too, are of interest with the dresses. Our queen is to carry a huge bouquet of red roses, and her maid-of-honor will have Dutch orchids and Talisman roses. The attendants will have arm boquets of white peonies and white snap-drag ons, tied with a bow and long streamers of white tuille. Another phase of the work for May Day which will ,be very much in evidence tomorrow is that of gathering properties for the pageant. Six weeks ago the committee for that job began its task. Mr. Bur- rage, who is always priceless when it comes to this day of the year, lived up to his reputation for tire less work in getting things just ex actly right; and we couldn’t have done without Mr. Oerter and “Roy” either. The queen’s crown was part of the costume committee’s work, but all of the other “extras” fell to the lot of Martha O’Keeffe)and her group of six girls. Mr. Burrage and “Roy” were the makers of the huge mushroom, the two bronze 'cornu copias, the clock of years, and the chariot which play such prominent parts in the afternoon. Besides these things, there had to be two large water-jugs and several deep, colored bowls; three footstools; a tea table with two dishes of cook- (Continued on P&ge Five)
Salem College Student Newspaper
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May 6, 1938, edition 1
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