Ann Arbor Summer Festival : All posts

Ann Arbor Summer Festival announces lineup for 2013 Top of the Park music, movies

The last night of Top of the Park 2012.

The Summer Festival runs June 14-July 7 this year. Top of the Park, which takes place in the Ingalls Mall area of East Washington Street, features live music six nights a week, along with socializing, food booth, special events and more. As in recent years, voting by the public helped determine the movies being shown. Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday nights, the evening ends with a movie on a large inflatable screen; on weekends, the music goes later, ending with a DJ set. Top of the Park admission is free, though donations are encouraged.

Ira Glass / dance troupe collaboration added to Ann Arbor Summer Festival lineup

Public radio host Ira Glass and members of the dance troupe Monica Bill Barnes & Company will be part of this year's Ann Arbor Summer Festival.

Photo by Ebru Yildiz

Ann Arbor Summer Festival announces 2013 main-stage schedule and 2 special Top of the Park attractions

The Ann Arbor Summer Festival on Monday announced its schedule of main-stage, ticketed shows for this year, as well as two special outdoor attractions at Top of the Park.

The schedule includes an on-stage appearance of the National Public Radio show "Snap Judgment," hosted by Glynn Washington, who holds bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Michigan; acclaimed British pop band Django Django; and New Orleans mainstay the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Other highlights include the drag ballet troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, as well as return appearances from Pink Martini and the Capitol Steps. The season also features a previously announced live broadcast of public-radio favorite "A Prairie Home Companion."

Help choose Ann Arbor Summer Festival's Top of the Park movies with 'Pick a Flick'

A Top of the Park movie crowd in 2010.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com file photo

"Pick-a-Flick" is the festival's online promotion that lets the public vote on the movies for this year's ToP, which runs June 14-July 7 at Ingalls Mall.

with poll: 'A Prairie Home Companion' with Garrison Keillor coming to Ann Arbor

Garrison Keillor

photo by Velenchenko

The show will take place Saturday, June 1, 2013. Although announced today, tickets won't go on sale until next April.

Ann Arbor Summer Festival 2012 reports good attendance, no rainouts, and contribution shortfall

The Top of the Park crowd on the last night of this year's Ann Arbor Summer Festival on Ingalls Mall.

Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com

“It’s always something - last year, I kept losing my credentials,” said Woulfe. “So (the staff) made me four sets of credentials this year. I’m like a kid with mittens.”

Such minor oversights seem easy to forgive, given how many events Woulfe plans and oversees during the three-week annual Festival, which this year included: twelve mainstage, paid-ticket events, including concert performances by Bonnie Raitt, Al Green and Rufus Wainwright; thirteen free outdoor movies; a few dozen free live music shows on two outdoor stages (The Grove and The Rackham Stage); and a variety of free community programs, ranging from yoga to a trivia contest to a dinosaur petting zoo, presented by Australia’s Erth-Visual and Physical, Inc.

photo gallery: Images from the closing night of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival

The Ann Arbor Summer Festival held its closing night festivities Sunday at Top of the Park in Ingalls Mall.

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: Ariel, Zoey & Eli Too; George Bedard & the Kingpins; 'Dirty Dancing'

Tonight is Day 21—"So Long Sunday," the final night this year—of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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with gallery: A different kind of circus comes to town; Circa will perform second Summer Festival show Saturday

Circus evolves. The seven performers of Circa, an Australian Cirque Nouveau company, wowed the Power Center audience Friday night with spectacular feats of human strength, balance, endurance, and gracefulness. The Ann Arbor Summer Festival main stage event helped kick off its last weekend with a standing ovation.

The company mixes traditional circus acts such as mind-bending acrobatics, contortions, and other spectacles with beautifully executed contemporary dance and movement. The smooth flow between diverse acts (from tumbling or balancing acts to a woman walking all over a man with her red high heels) proves that circus can evolve in really interesting ways.

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: Thornetta Davis, Nervous But Excited, and more

Tonight is Day 20 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: Pop from Khalid Hanifi and Taylor Fernandez, R&B from the Saints of Soul and Brother Joscephus

Tonight is Day 19 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: 'Answer This!,' trivia contest with movie director, electronic pop

Tonight is Day 18 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: Latin jazz, wine tasting, 'Forrest Gump'

Tonight is Day 17 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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'Cinematic Titanic' bringing 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' gang to the Michigan Theater stage

“I’ve tried a lot of diff things, and this is one of the things that worked,” said Hodgson, who began his career in stand-up comedy. “I think I hit a nerve somehow. I was with the right people who were able to really make (MST3K) funny and make it work. … From the time we were little tiny kids, we’re put in front of a TV, and it talks to us. And at a certain point, you want to talk back. You want to say things back to it. So MST3K and movie riffing in general play off that natural instinct to talk back.”

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with video: Tonight at Top of the Park: Summer beer tasting, photo night, roots rock, 'Close Encounters'

Tonight is Day 16 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

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Australia's boundary-bending Circa aims to shake up the circus tradition

Instead, look for a fusion of acrobatics, aerial stunts, extreme tumbling and contemporary dance as well as a barrage of sound, light and projection.

“Circa is an exquisite display that stretches the boundaries of what bodies can be,” artistic director Yaron Lifschitz said.

Lifschitz created the Brisbane, Australia-based ensemble in 2006. He said his goal has been to strip away the layers that have built up around the circus tradition.

Images from Rufus Wainwright at the Power Center

Rufus Wainwright performs at the Power Center on Saturday as part of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival.

Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com

Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com

Photographer Jeffrey Smith captured these images. For more on Summer Festival events, check out the festival website, and check out past AnnArbor.com coverage here.

Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com

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Tonight at Top of the Park: Madcat & Kane; family rock; 'Jurassic Park'; and more

Tonight is Day 15 of Top of the Park, the popular, free (donations welcome) outdoor happening featuring music, movies, kicking back, running into friends, and a variety of other attractions.

Each day in cooperation with the Ann Arbor Summer Festival—which presents Top of the Park as well as main-stage ticketed events—AnnArbor.com is publishing a rundown of the night's happenings. Here's an overview of tonight's schedule, followed by a more detailed look at the events and attractions:

with video: A kid's-eye report from Erth's 'Dinosaur Petting Zoo' at Top of the Park

Photo by Jeffrey Smith | AnnArbor.com

On Saturday, by way of an introduction to Erth’s Dinosaur Petting Zoo - a free Ann Arbor Summer Festival special attraction that offers its final shows at 4 and 6 p.m. on Sunday - the woman who runs the show made a point of telling the hundred-plus kids who sat on the shady grass in front of the Power Center that there were no real, living dinosaurs in Ann Arbor, and that what they were about to see were just extremely life-like, very convincing puppets.

“Fortunately, though, you’ll forget everything I’ve just said in about one minute,” she added.

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Capitol Steps returning with fresh material - and another election year

The Capitol Steps

But you could make a case that the Capitol Steps helped lay the groundwork for such skewerings, because they’ve been at it a lot longer—the Steps’ origins go back to 1981.

The Steps operate in a slightly different medium than the aforementioned satirists, though: They make their satirical barbs with clever song parodies, both on record and on stage.