An Outing to the Detroit Festival of the Arts

On Saturday we went to midtown for the Detroit Festival of the Arts for a couple of hours. They have a huge area devoted to art-related activities for children. Although Jack was too small for most of the activities, he was able to take part in the Musical Maze. As you can see from the pictures, it was basically an area with musical instruments, kitchen items, and pretty much anything else that makes noise. While some could easily be annoyed by the cacophony of sounds, I found that it did not bother me a bit, and I rather enjoyed the sound. I guess that is what years of listening to chance and atonal music has done to me.

Anyway, Jack absolutely loved it, and it was worth the trip just to see him have a good time running around amidst the other kids and banging on things. As you can see from the picture, he was a little hesitant at first and stuck to the perimeter. But in a blink, he charged into the midst of the action with the other children. We eventually had to leave the area because he kept trying to get in the middle of the older kids who were playing with reckless abandon. Well, that and since everything he hit and touched made a cool noise he decided to see if the other kids would do the same if they were hit with a wooden spoon...
After we got home, Kate put all of my mixing bowls on the floor for him to bang on. Sigh.

After a couple of hours wandering (and dncing to live music, of course!), Jack was beginning to have a meltdown, so we decided to head back to the car and go home. It was right when we started to head back that one of the street "performances" began. It is hard to see in the pictures, but there is a guy in stilts inside of the...dinosaur. There were three of them (and a "trainer") running around the streets, eating leaves off the trees, making Godzilla noises (or Mothra?), from speakers in their butts acting like they were going to eat children, and scaring people. (They were members of the Close-Act Visual Theatre from the Netherlands.) Jack was enthralled. He laughed and pointed and was disappointed when we finally left the area in which they were frolicking. I swear, the boy has no fear. I was not able to get a decent picture of his face watching them, so you will just have to take my word for it.