Something Wicked This Way Comes?

By Melissa Feldsher in Arts & Entertainment on May 15, 2009 4:20PM

Sometimes you’ve just got to have a parade. But if you’re Columbia College’s Manifest Urban Arts Festival, you have the Spectacle Fortuna Parade of Creativity. Wishing good fortune upon seniors and graduate students before they hit the brick wall that is a 9.4 percent unemployment rate, the Spectacle Fortuna will fill the streets with hundreds of Ray Bradbury-inspired giant puppets, the punk marching band, Mucca Pazza, and ephemera created by the talented students, faculty and staff.

Let us repeat: hundred of Ray Bradbury- inspired giant puppets. Yes, loyal reader, you heard right. This year Columbia College will honor Bradbury’s career as the recipient of the 2009 Honorary Doctorate Degree at commencement (take that, Arizona State). Columbia design students will also bring to life characters from Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, and of course, The Illustrated Man. While Bradbury himself won’t be able to attend the parade due to health concerns, the crafty Columbia College students have created a puppet doppelganger of the man himself.

Though a puppet parade is hard to top, Manifest will certainly try to best itself with over 75 student showcases taking the form of lectures, galleries, screenings, and web casts. Student bands and art for sale scatter the campus, while provocative auto and auto-inspired art is backed up by Lupe Fiasco’s former break dancers. With events like these, going to Manifest should be your destiny.

Columbia College’s Spectacle Fortuna Parade, Begins at 6:45 p.m., Harrison and Michigan Avenues, Free. For all events, maps, and schedules visit http://cms.colum.edu/manifest/.