Jeanne Fleming
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Jeanne Fleming is an American Celebration Artist from New York, who organized the Harbor Festival Fair in 1986 and New York's Village Halloween Parade.
One of Fleming's signatures is her use of pageant sized puppets – giant rod puppets operated by teams of puppeteers. For Liberty's party in 1986, she "...invited all the great statues of the world to her birthday party and created giant puppets to represent them. Each one arrived accompanied by native music," Fleming explained. The centennial extravaganza lasted three days and drew 12 million people, and is said to have been the largest public event in the world as of that date.
[edit] Parade director
For the Village Halloween Parade, she commissions giant puppets and other larger-than-life creations from area puppet groups and creative communities. She is credited for building the parade to its present state; it draws two million spectators and fifty thousand participants.
Fleming makes a special study of the meanings underlying celebrations and rituals, for use in her productions. For example, she selects annual themes for the Halloween parade which explore the holiday's historic origins, and its psychic, spiritual, and mythical meanings, focusing on selected aspects from year to year. She also incorporates ideas behind seasonal traditions, such as Celtic and harvest festivals, into the parade. The notion of Halloween as a night of transformation is often reflected in the themes, as well as ideas of self-expression and community.
Fleming took responsibility for continuing the Village Halloween Parade when it was threatened with an impeding cancellation after its eighth year. She had been a participant in the parade for years. In addition to making puppets each year at her workshop in upstate New York, she is credited for building the parade to its current state. Its Artistic and Producing Director since 1979, Fleming planned for its future growth by working with five Manhattan neighborhood's community board, local police, residents, sponsors, schools, and community organizations.
[edit] Other work
Fleming conducts workshops in pageantry puppets at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, Inc. as well as large and small scale celebrations, processions and rituals for cities, towns and communities. She creates rites of passage and private and personal ceremonies. In her 30 years as a Celebration Artist she has at one time or another shut down all of NYC from the Battery to 125th Street for events that change the nature of the city for brief periods of time. She has designed and directed the 4th of July for NYC, as well as the 52nd Street River to River Festival and the 42nd Street River to River Festivas in NYC and the Tercentenary Celebration for the town of Rhinebeck. Recently she was one of the designers and organizers of the Global Women's Gathering that brought wise women elders from all over the globe to discuss world issues and created a Grandmother's Council as an NGO to the United Nations. She has created dozens of smaller events with spiritual leaders from many religious backgrounds, as well as the Old Dutch Christmas Celebration in Rhinebeck, NY. She also designs and produces in-school arts-in-education programs based on Native and ethnic traditions, including Let the River Connect Us a program with Native Americans from the Akwasasne Community and Flash of the Spirit a program looking into the Afro-American roots of the Hudson Community.
