13th(!) Duluth ALL Souls Night
Donation protected
DASN2020 is still seeking donations of any size to pay our talented and deserving Minnesota artists. This year we have added overhead costs due to transitioning to COVID-19 health requirements and severely limited arts funding. We need your help to help us break even at a time that we all need community creativity more than ever!
Duluth All Souls Night (DASN) is our Northern Minnesota city's fall arts festival that has taken place in for twelve years at the downtown depot Great Hall and public library Pavilion. DASN is intergenerational, multicultural, and trans-disciplinary, nurturing expression from everyone as we recognize loss and embrace what is life giving at the post-harvest/pre-winter time of year when leaves have fallen and things look a bit bleak. The art installations and this nighttime gathering have consistently attracted large crowds every November by acknowledging and transforming grief with craft, poetry, music, dance, and unique spectacle arts like giant puppets, aerialists, and fire spinning.
Sadly, during this time of global pandemic, we were not able to do what we have done in the past, observing on one evening with many people shoulder to shoulder under one roof. However, we believed the magical effects of community art-making were needed this fall more than ever! So, instead of one night in one place we planned several physically distanced happenings throughout Duluth throughout October (observing all CDC guidelines), including a virtually together ceremony online Sunday, Nov. 1st, 7 p.m. posted on our facebook page and website.
* Windows Into Grief installations opened throughout October with the theme of mourning inside Superior Street business windows for distanced tour in partnership with the Downtown Duluth Arts Walk. There were over twenty Downtown and Lincoln Park locations from 230 E. Superior St. to 2009 W. Superior St. We received a small grant as part of Artists Respond: Combating Social Isolation, a project of Springboard for the Arts.
*A live-streamed Spoken Word "Plaguestream" event at 7:00 Friday, Oct. 23rd with The Embassy at their new studio. We will also share some student filmed digital performances/personal stories of grief-centered art-making on social media through as they become available.
*Filmed funeral march & fire ceremony posted online starting Sunday, November 1st @ 7:00 p.m.
Featuring Duluth's The Boys Back Home brass band and The Spin Collective fire dancers! Mary Plaster and Daniel Benoit received emergency COVID grants for some updated equipment used. This activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
These innovations for our 13th(!) event actually increase community involvement (AND the visibility of our presenting sponsors) with topics of honoring of ancestors, cultural approaches to observing death, naming of Rotten Ideas (death bringing concepts like racism, environmental destruction, poverty...) and the magic of metamorphosis.
If you can, please help us repay our enchanters, creatives who help us see possibility in the dark! In the past we have received Arrowhead Regional Arts Council funding, the amazing space at the Depot, and cash freewill public donations in order to make ends meet. In this, our 13th (!) year by moving distanced, citywide, and virtual we were unable to accept cash due to the coronavirus. Please use this handy digital tool to give generously…especially when sparking imagination is required to maintain hope and healing, uniting us all in these unprecedented times.
Do contact us with your ideas, to volunteer, and/or if you desire to give at the level of presenting sponsor for perks. There is never a mandatory fee to join our efforts, the virtual events remained free. Anyone can also support us in several ways: time volunteering, setting up window displays, offering stories for taping, writing Rotten Ideas for burning, providing spaces for the art installation window tour, etc..
We are grateful for your compassionate consideration!
Yours,
DASN 2020
Photo: Max Skeleton and Spin Collective, October 2020, Wisconsin Point, Superior, WI
Duluth All Souls Night (DASN) is our Northern Minnesota city's fall arts festival that has taken place in for twelve years at the downtown depot Great Hall and public library Pavilion. DASN is intergenerational, multicultural, and trans-disciplinary, nurturing expression from everyone as we recognize loss and embrace what is life giving at the post-harvest/pre-winter time of year when leaves have fallen and things look a bit bleak. The art installations and this nighttime gathering have consistently attracted large crowds every November by acknowledging and transforming grief with craft, poetry, music, dance, and unique spectacle arts like giant puppets, aerialists, and fire spinning.
Sadly, during this time of global pandemic, we were not able to do what we have done in the past, observing on one evening with many people shoulder to shoulder under one roof. However, we believed the magical effects of community art-making were needed this fall more than ever! So, instead of one night in one place we planned several physically distanced happenings throughout Duluth throughout October (observing all CDC guidelines), including a virtually together ceremony online Sunday, Nov. 1st, 7 p.m. posted on our facebook page and website.
* Windows Into Grief installations opened throughout October with the theme of mourning inside Superior Street business windows for distanced tour in partnership with the Downtown Duluth Arts Walk. There were over twenty Downtown and Lincoln Park locations from 230 E. Superior St. to 2009 W. Superior St. We received a small grant as part of Artists Respond: Combating Social Isolation, a project of Springboard for the Arts.
*A live-streamed Spoken Word "Plaguestream" event at 7:00 Friday, Oct. 23rd with The Embassy at their new studio. We will also share some student filmed digital performances/personal stories of grief-centered art-making on social media through as they become available.
*Filmed funeral march & fire ceremony posted online starting Sunday, November 1st @ 7:00 p.m.
Featuring Duluth's The Boys Back Home brass band and The Spin Collective fire dancers! Mary Plaster and Daniel Benoit received emergency COVID grants for some updated equipment used. This activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
These innovations for our 13th(!) event actually increase community involvement (AND the visibility of our presenting sponsors) with topics of honoring of ancestors, cultural approaches to observing death, naming of Rotten Ideas (death bringing concepts like racism, environmental destruction, poverty...) and the magic of metamorphosis.
If you can, please help us repay our enchanters, creatives who help us see possibility in the dark! In the past we have received Arrowhead Regional Arts Council funding, the amazing space at the Depot, and cash freewill public donations in order to make ends meet. In this, our 13th (!) year by moving distanced, citywide, and virtual we were unable to accept cash due to the coronavirus. Please use this handy digital tool to give generously…especially when sparking imagination is required to maintain hope and healing, uniting us all in these unprecedented times.
Do contact us with your ideas, to volunteer, and/or if you desire to give at the level of presenting sponsor for perks. There is never a mandatory fee to join our efforts, the virtual events remained free. Anyone can also support us in several ways: time volunteering, setting up window displays, offering stories for taping, writing Rotten Ideas for burning, providing spaces for the art installation window tour, etc..
We are grateful for your compassionate consideration!
Yours,
DASN 2020
Photo: Max Skeleton and Spin Collective, October 2020, Wisconsin Point, Superior, WI
Fundraising team: DASN2020 Planning (2)
Mary Plaster
Organizer
Duluth, MN
Sara Sha
Team member