Sinterklaas is Coming to Town
by Cynthia Owen Philip

Yes, Virginia, Sinterklaas really is coming to town! Only he is going to be an even more expansive character than the one you have come to know—a bringer of light, love, generosity, warmth, the good king, the guardian of children. Some of you may remember the magical Dutch Christmas celebrations with which our own celebration artist Jeanne Fleming filled the village of Rhinebeck's streets for seven years in the 1980s. Their pageantry turned girls and boys into monarchs for the day. They wore crowns and carried scepters they had created themselves and grown-ups paid courtly deference to them.

The same will be true of the new Sinterklaas festival, set for Saturday, December 6th. The difference is that the celebration will reach back in time far beyond the Dutch tradition to the roots every human being has devised to make tangible the mantra Let there be light! Thus the Sinterklaas celebration will be secular, ecumenical and diverse, including Christians, Jews and nature lovers along with our growing Mexican population. The original Native American culture will be featured, too. The aim of Sinterklaas is to strengthen and refresh Rhinebeck's sense of community as well as its very long history reaching back to its earliest Dutch roots—and it will be the opening Rhinebeck event celebrating 400 years since Henry Hudson's voyage of discovery of the river that bears his name!

This grand vision offers opportunities for everyone to participate—banjo players, group and solo singers, actors, yarn spinners, painters, snake dancers, fire jugglers and puppeteers to name only a few, for the range of performers in our neighborhood is astonishingly wide and deep. If performing is not your line, you might round up beads, buttons and bows, shells, streamers and yarn, lace, necklaces and charms—anything that, reflecting the light to be called forth, is glittery. (Call Jeanne at 845-758-5519 and arrangements will be made for you to deliver or to pick-up your contribution. Endless quantities of such materials are needed!)

Or you could help make puppets. New ones are being designed. Beloved old ones will awaken from their long sleep and be refurbished. Right now you can see some of your favorites in the windows of the former Bings Restaurant, the donated headquarters for Sinterklaas (down the short driveway at 46 West Market Street, Rhinebeck). Every night the puppets are illuminated for a few hours after dark. Speaking of headquarters, the festival will need lots of organizers—both in the weeks leading up to the event or just on the day itself.

One Festival, Many Events
Six weeks before December 6, internationally known puppeteers Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles—they fabricate the giant puppets for New York City's Halloween Parade and are based in Red Hook—will begin workshops for groups of friends, teens, families, schools and local organizations. They will be at work every day in Bings if you want to drop in and help for a couple of hours. On November 29 at 6 pm, one week before the festival, St. Nicholas, so beloved by the Dutch, will arrive in a sloop at the Rhinecliff Landing. For three nights he will ride through Rhinebeck neighborhoods. His white horse will seek out the traditional "carrot in a shoe" the children have left for him. He will be accompanied by the Grumpuses, his prankster sidekicks who will leave candy on the doorsteps of those that do. Along the way a St. George and the Dragon play created by Peter Musto and a teen cast will be performed. This play, and others created by the Center for the Performing Arts, will be performed at the Bings workshop on weekends and on the Festival Day itself.

Prelude over, the eagerly anticipated day of celebration will at last arrive. With all the events, the town will become an enchanted place. At a workshop at the Dutch Reformed Church, hundreds of children will make their Crowns and Branches—royal scepters, to which they will attach three wishes—one for their family, one for their town and one for the world. Throughout the day performances in Town Hall, the churches, the Beekman Arms and the shops will present the varied solstice traditions from around the world. Singers, dancers, musicians, the Abbots Bromley Deer Dance, a stilt band and The Wild Women will fill the streets.

The culminating event of the day will be a Children's Starlight Parade. While children adorn themselves with their crowns and their branches, grown-ups will carry hundreds of large illuminated stars. (These can be purchased ahead of time in support of the Whale Watch, along with Chocolate Letters, another Old Dutch Tradition. In the grand finale the adults, bearing their Stars, will bow down to the children, honoring them as the town's future—and for a brief moment holding the stars at the child's waist level, will position the children in a field of stars. Then, as they again stand, they will raise the stars above their heads, placing them and the entire community in its proper place in the firmament. In that one moment the entire community will come together under the stars. Afterwards, they may take their beautiful stars home as a reminder of the communal celebration. But they must not forget to bring them back for Sinterklaas 2009, when still more stars will be added to the galaxy.

Festivals of light are an ancient and global way to bring communities together. Rhinebeck's Sinterklaas is an exercise in modern mythmaking... Be sure to mark it on your must do calendar!

To Volunteer: Call Jeanne Fleming at 845 758 5519 or send an email from the website: www.sinterklaasrhinebeck.com.