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NAHANT — Nahant Cultural Council will bring the community together for a spring and nature celebration Saturday.
For the second consecutive year, an event titled “Art, Nature, Nahant” will take place at East Point, celebrating spring and the town’s natural resources through art.
“The idea (behind the event) was to simply project that we as a special community have a relationship with nature and the sea that is quite important to us all,” said James Walsh, chair of the Nahant Cultural Council. “The event was very successful last year and we decided to do it again.”
The event will span several hours and will feature different activities in two locations – Memorial Park, a flat area to the right from Nahant Road where it approaches East Point, and Lodge Park.
The celebration will begin at 10 a.m. at Memorial Park, where artists and crafters will display and sell their creations. Johnson Elementary School students will showcase the environmental projects that they have created for the school’s science fair, exploring solutions to different environmental challenges.
Nahant Public Library will bring in some books to exhibit at the event, and Safer Waters in Massachusetts (S.W.I.M.), a town environmental group, will raise awareness about its environmental initiatives and membership.
At noon, visitors will be able to enjoy some music performances and poetry written by the Johnson Elementary School students.
The celebration will continue at Lodge Park at 4 p.m. with dance performances, singing, poetry readings and music from a brass quintet from the New England Conservatory of Music, sponsored by Nahant Historical Society.
Forty Steps Dance, a Nahant based modern dance company founded by Artistic Director Sallee Slagle, will kick off its 30th anniversary season by performing at the event. Visitors can expect to see some modern dance pieces as well as traditional spring dances like the English folk Morris dance, choreographed by Jeff Bigler, another local dance specialist, Slagle said.
“Incorporating the Morris dance is something out of the ordinary for us and has been a nice challenge for my dancers to do something very different,” said Slagle. “We want to reach our audience; we want to reach our community. We want to celebrate alongside them.”
As a part of traditional spring celebration, Forty Steps dancers and community participants will also dance around a maypole.
The “Art, Nature, Nahant” event and all of the performances are free to the public.
Attendees are encouraged to bring a family picnic blanket. Chairs will be available to enjoy this seaside celebration.
Alena Kuzub can be reached at alena@itemlive.com.
