Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation, speaks like a much wiser Yogi Berra: “Why should a tomato fly?” he asks about Americans’ practice of consuming foods transported cross-country. “You can’t negotiate with a beetle,” he says, referring to the looming invasion of the emerald ash borer. “He operates under another law, a different authority. How do we educate the people about what’s really important?”
This weekend’s Stage of Nations Blue Rain Ecofest is one way. It represents the merging of two festivals, which have stood on their own for the last several years. Irving Lyons, co-producer of the festival and nephew of Oren, organized the first Haudenosaunee festival in 2001, held in the parking lot of Fairmount Fair. (“Haudenosaunee” is the traditional term for the six nations of the Iroquois, Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga and Tuscarora; it translates to “People of the Longhouse.”)
The following year, Lyons asked then Syracuse Mayor Matt Driscoll if Clinton Square could be the site, and Driscoll agreed; he also acquiesced when Lyons asked that the purple-and-white Haudenosaunee flag fly alongside the other countries’ in the downtown hot spot.
In 2005, the festival moved to Onondaga Community College. The last time Lyons presented the festival was in 2008 in Hanover Square. “We raised enough money at that festival,” Lyons notes, “that I could fund a Native scholarship. That festival was a success, but I need help with it.” While Sherri Waterman-Hopper, leader of the Haudenosaunee Dancers, has assisted Lyons in the past, this year he decided to seek even more help.
“When I was asked this year when the festival would come back, I approached {New Times publisher} Bill Brod and asked him if he’d be interested in helping,” Lyons says. “He saw the vision, and agreed to co-produce the festival with me.” And while Lyons wants to show off the art and culture of the Haudenosaunee, he knows it’s just as important to present educational opportunities to festival goers.
During discussions with other Arts Week organizers, Lyons connected with Larry
Luttinger, who has produced the Blue Rain Ecofest concurrently with the
Northeast Jazz and Wine Festival the last three years. Considering the
Haudenosaunees’ ongoing concern for the environment, it made sense to
merge the two events. The festival takes place throughout Hanover Square
and across Warren Street in City Hall Commons Atrium.
“Larry Luttinger said to me, ‘The green philosophy and the Native philosophy are so congruent, let’s bring the two together.’ This is a whole different festival because of the inclusion of the Blue Rain Ecofest,” says Lyons. “We hope we can make this an annual event.”
During its two-day run the festival will feature musical entertainment (such as Irv Lyons’ band, the Fabulous Ripcords), dancing and singing from Waterman-Hopper’s troupe, remarks from Oren Lyons—including his introduction of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team, which just won the bronze medal at the World Lacrosse Championships in Turku, Finland. (See the accompanying complete schedule.)
Also in attendance and lending his calm presence will be the Tadadaho, Sid Hill, who was installed in the position on April 13, 2002. Tadadaho, always held by an Onondaga, dates back more than a thousand years. That person is the spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee, putting the individual who holds the title in charge of seeing the future for all six nations for seven generations.
As for holding a Haudenosaunee festival—which isn’t totally arts-related—during Arts Week, Irv Lyons makes the connection. “Native philosophy isn’t linear; and art isn’t linear; and music isn’t linear,” he says. “It’s not straight-line thinking. Natives have known how important music and art are, and it just develops the whole person. Art and music drive math, all our people are very artistic in some way. In that regard it makes sense.
“Dancing, too, is an art form,” he continues. “Let’s be honest, the Haudenosaunee dancers are probably the No. 1 attraction people will want to see. Hanover Square will be packed when they’re performing. It’s so beautiful, it’s so graceful, it’s a spectacle; it just really captures who we are and our spirit. And with Native philosophy concerning the environment, Oren taught me a long time ago to think that every time our feet strike the ground it reminds us of our connection with the earth. That just reinforces the connection between the Blue Rain Ecofest and Stage of Nations even more.”
The display that will likely garner the most attention, however, is planned to be inside the City Hall Commons Atrium, 201 E. Washington St., alongside other educational displays. It resembles a glass-enclosed Death Star with an enormous spiral staircase inside. Instead of wooden steps, vegetables cover the spiral. It’s a model of the latest Onondaga Nation enterprise, the Plantagon, an urban greenhouse created by a Swedish conglomerate called Plantagon International.
The idea is to bring to urban centers a compact way to grow edible plants. “It solves the problem of getting light to layers inside a greenhouse,” Oren Lyons says. A Plantagon will be close to consumers, which will reduce handling costs by up to 80 percent. Plantagon estimates that up to 60 percent of an urban consumer’s food budget goes to pay for transportation and storage; hence Oren Lyons’ flying tomato comment. “We don’t intend to compete with farmers,” he assures. “We will work with them to bring their crops in to the cities. One Plantagon will feed 350,000 people in a year. This is a huge solution to a huge global, economic problem.”
Population centers already interested in the 142-meter-high (nearly 462 feet), 26-story sphere include Singapore, Barcelona, Spain, and several cities in China and India. “Large cities will need more than one,” Lyons says. Plantagon experts are expected to be on hand to answer visitor questions during the course of the festival.
Both Oren Lyons and Hill look forward to the Stage of Nations Blue Rain Ecofest as a way to educate the public, even if only for a few hours. “What we can do during the festival is very limited and very small, but it’s a step,” Lyons says. “This combination of green initiatives and Haudenosaunee values is going to grow. There is a point of no return for how much damage the earth’s environment can take; we just don’t know where it is.”
Irv Lyons obviously listened to the lessons his uncle taught him. “Our people, on the eastern shores of Onondaga Lake 400 years ago, we told the Europeans how to take care of the earth and they didn’t listen, and here we are. It’s not about pointing fingers. It’s about working together to take care of our earth. If the earth is sick, then we’re sick.”
Adds Hill, ever a stoic presence: “But here we are. The earth has 7
billion people and the ice is melting. We’re in a fight.”
For more information, visit blueraincofest.org; for more information on the Plantagon, check out plantagon.com.
