In addition to the incredible theater, dance, visual arts and music for which Chicago is renowned, we believe that parading should be recognized as an important art form in our culture. Chicagoans can see for themselves Saturday evening as the 10th annual Arts in the Dark Parade steps off on State Street, celebrating our city’s expansive and diverse arts landscape and bringing delight to the thousands gathered on Chicago’s iconic thoroughfare.
For those who’ve not yet attended, the not-for-profit Arts in the Dark Parade is an engaging and singular nighttime parade that presents a lively mix of puppetry, spectacle, masks and costumes; lighting, fire, circus and street arts; music, theater and dance; and a big dose of an exuberant attitude. While proudly selected as one of the great Halloween events in the world, Arts in the Dark is far more than a well-orchestrated and entertaining event; it is a mission-driven and curated cultural moment shaped by our values and ideas.
It is worth noting that, in many cultures, parading is an established creative genre. Carnival and Mardi Gras, with its related Second Line performances, are stirring examples. Unfortunately, most American parades have lost their artistry and creative spirit due to the influence of commerce, religion and political agendas. We seek to reestablish parading as an expressive art form. Consequently, we do not allow politicians, traditional beauty queens, sponsors and formulaic floats in our parade and encourage our groups to bring their inspiration to the street.
Carnival and Mardi Gras are our North Star. Carnival origins go back some 5,000 years to the pagan traditions of Greece and Egypt in which festivities occurred around the cycles of nature and the cosmos. In the Middle Ages, carnival involved the whole community — a giant celebration with parades, masks and costumes, food and drink, and a playful reordering of traditional mores. African cultures contributed significantly to carnival traditions, as enslaved people who were newly emancipated brought their musical instruments, dance rhythms, singing styles, masks and costumes to the street.
We encourage our creative contingents to embrace this performative spirit and to fully engage our audience with their costumes, movement, music and performance. No passively waving hello. As in carnival tradition, our parade participants fuse emotionally with the audience through their engaging performances.
Arts in the Dark showcases human creativity and self-expression and encourages a sense of collective joy. We create a sense of community as our audience is transported and feels something bigger than their daily lives. We offer a public ritual that reminds us of our creative spirit.
We also seek to establish Halloween as the artists’ holiday. Halloween’s roots go back 2,000 years to Celtic practices and remain a distinctive holiday untouched by political or religious expectations. During Halloween festivities, we don masks and costumes, take on new personas, grapple with the fading light and approaching darkness, and play with the spirits and mortality — much like the actions and attitudes of many of our artists.
While the Arts in the Dark Parade is inspired by Halloween traditions, our participants are not bound by a Halloween theme; instead, groups are encouraged to showcase their important and disparate cultural traditions. The parade features an array of cultural and ethnic groups including a powerful representation of Black and Mexican cultures. Additionally, the parade has featured Irish, Colombian, Polynesian, Brazilian, South Asia, Korean, Puerto Rican, Caribbean, Chinese, Indonesian, Peruvian, LGTBQ+ organizations and more.
As acknowledged earlier, Chicago is one of the great world cultural capitals. We are the birthplace of modern architecture, the urban blues, improv, modern gospel, jazz, storefront theater, house music, poetry slam and so much more. The Arts in the Dark Parade provides a unifying moment in which we collectively celebrate our cultural landscape. Our poets, designers, architects, actors, musicians, dancers, writers, film crews, museum staffers, visual artists, neighborhood cultural organizations and art teachers all contribute to the cultural vitality of our city, and we recognize this. With Arts in the Dark, we place a spotlight on this expansive community, connect our disparate creative organizations and individuals within it, and inspire our audience.
We hope you will join us on Saturday evening as we dramatically celebrate our creative spirit.
Mark Kelly and Sharene Shariatzadeh are co-founders of the Arts in the Dark Parade. Kelly is the parade’s artistic director, a former commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and a longtime educator and administrator at Columbia College Chicago. Shariatzadeh is president and CEO of LUMA8, an independent not-for-profit that strives to elevate Chicago as a focal point of artistic innovation to enrich the lives of its citizens and create economic impact.
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