“Being Merry in the Sunshine” Marion Cross School Celebrates Mayfest 2025

Every year, on a Thursday in May, students of all ages at Marion Cross School gather on the Norwich Green to sing, dance, and welcome the sunshine. Community members join them on picnic blankets to enjoy live music performed by the school band and watch the students’ performances. Mayfest is a long-standing tradition at Marion Cross—a spring festival that has been celebrated for as long as many faculty members can remember.

Students look forward to performing all year long. In the weeks leading up to the festival, they spend lots of time outside practicing and perfecting the songs and dances specific to their grade level. They also create colorful garlands to wear and vibrant paper decorations to adorn the Green.

This is Travis Ramsey’s eleventh year teaching music to children from Pre-K through sixth grade at Marion Cross. He leads both the chorus and the band, and has been working hard to prepare students for Mayfest. “It’s a chance for the kids to come out and celebrate spring with singing and dancing,” Ramsey says.

The songs and choreography students learn for the festival vary based on their age and skill level. Much of the performance is rooted in tradition, with each grade typically participating in the same dances each year—drawing on New England’s rich history of folk music and dance. Contra dancing, for example, is a centuries-old folk tradition that remains popular in New England today. Accompanied by fiddle and accordion music, this communal dance involves long lines of dancers pairing up and moving in rhythmic patterns. It’s meant to be a shared experience, and Mayfest proudly upholds this spirit of togetherness as students sing and dance side by side.

Mia Tesone and Lucy Gaugh

The sixth graders, the oldest students at Marion Cross, cap off the festival with a series of maypole dances. A maypole dance is a traditional folk routine in which dancers move around a festively decorated pole, each holding a ribbon attached to the top. As they circle the pole, they weave intricate patterns with their ribbons. At the end of the dance, the ribbons are swiftly unwound in a dazzling swirl of color and movement. It’s a beautiful and symbolic way to welcome spring. Younger grades perform dances appropriate to their level, building up to the maypole dance in their final year at Marion Cross.

“The kids really look forward to being the biggest kids in the school and getting to perform this intricate maypole dance,” Ramsey explains. “It’s like a rite of passage.”

Georgia Gollub and Jaden Stocking

The long-standing tradition of Mayfest spans generations at Marion Cross School. Some current faculty members, who attended MCS as children, recall Mayfest with deep affection. Ross McGee, now a math coach at the school, is one such alum. He remembers feeling jealous of his older brother, who performed the maypole dance three years before he got his chance. “I eagerly awaited my turn to be a ‘big kid.’ The songs, the dancing, and being outside as an entire school community are memories I will always carry with me,” McGee says. The maypole dance gives students a joyful milestone to look forward to and fondly remember.

Hillary Roberts, a self-proclaimed “Marion Cross School Superfan,” was a classmate of McGee’s and now works as an education assistant at the school. She describes Mayfest as a tradition that makes Marion Cross “truly magical.” Like McGee, she recalls the 5th and 6th grade dances as highlights of her experience. “It was such an honor to finally be a fifth grader and wear all white with bells around our ankles while we did the ‘stick dance,’” Roberts shares. The stick dance, a beloved tradition for fifth graders at MCS, features students dancing and playfully jousting with poles.

The memories of Mayfest stay with Marion Cross students for decades. Ania Safford, a member of the class of 2000 and now a sixth-grade teacher at MCS, paints a vivid picture of her own Mayfest experience: “I can easily transport myself back to the meadow on a beautiful spring afternoon—the field filled with colorful flying flags, the sounds of accordion, fiddle, and guitar music, Maypole ribbons floating in the wind, and picnic blankets covering the hillside.” That tranquil joy is what alumni remember most dearly.

Mayfest offers students at Marion Cross a chance to learn traditional folk dances and perform them for their community on the spring Green, creating memories that last a lifetime. “The students get to put their teamwork and musical learning into action,” says Ramsey. “It’s an important way for us to contribute to our community.”