mojosmom | Summer's here and the time is right for dancin' in the streets!

I was so tired when I got home last night! But it was a good tired.

I went down to SummerDance tonight. Thursday through Sunday, on summer evenings, the City of Chicago has dancing at the south end of Grant Park. There's one hour of instruction in whatever kind of dance (two-step, salsa, mambo, etc., etc.), a short break, then live music to dance to. You can get food, wine and beer, too. It's tremendous fun!

I nearly danced my toesies off to Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys (note: this is their MySpace page and there's music when you open it).

This was the second night in a row for me. Yesterday was the Lafayette Rhythm Devils (also MySpace & music).

I didn't stay for their whole set, though, as I wanted to get to Navy Pier for what turned out to be an absolutely amazing spectacle! The Compagnie Transe-Express was performing their spectacle Maudits Sonnants, in cooperation with the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. It's a human carillon, suspended in the air. But that doesn't really begin to describe it. You arrive, and there is an odd looking contraption sitting on the ground:

.

Around it are several platforms, with elaborate wire frames. Then a man arrives, and climbs into the contraption via a rope ladder; he is a bellringer. More performers arrive, and, climbing the platforms, light torches, and interact with the spectators (one near us was declaiming the prologue from Shakespeare's Henry V):

Soon, they all approach that contraption, strap themselves in (or not, as we shall see), and are carried aloft by a crane:

The performance lasts nearly an hour, during which time this frame opens and closes like a flower, turns, lifts and lowers, and all the while six bellringers and three drummers are playing, and three acrobats, on rope and trapeze, are demonstrating their art:

Then, slowly, the carillon is lowered all the way down, the musicians and acrobats exit and bow. But what of the first bellringer, whose rope ladder was removed? Don't worry! He returns to earth in a most spectacular fashion!