Observer Editor, Free
“Top of the Park”: Ann Arbor Summer Festival
See 13 Friday. Tonight in the KidZone: “Ultimate Paper Airplane Challenge” (5 p.m.) with Launch Ann Arbor. In the Annex Tent: Stand-Up Comedy (7 p.m.) hosted by local comic Julianna Loera-Wiggins. On the Power Center Lawn: Jazzercise (5:30 p.m.) led by a Saline Jazzercise instructor. On the O&W Grove Stage: local jazz guitarist Max Bowen (5 p.m.), and a late-night DJ set by DJ Medusa (10 p.m.). On the Rackham Stage: traditional New Orleans jazz by the Detroit-based Gabriel Brass Band (7 p.m.), and Okan (8 p.m.), a Canadian world-music group led by Cuban-born violinist-vocalist Elizabeth Rodriguez and percussionist-vocalist Magdelys Savigne, whose music fuses Afro-Cuban roots with jazz, folk, and global rhythms in songs about immigration, resistance, and love. Also, two 30-minute family-friendly shows by Squonk (5:45 & 8 p.m.), a large Pittsburgh-based performance collective whose high-energy shows feature driving rhythms, a big brass section, and searing guitar solos. At the center of the performance is the “Squonkcordion,” an enormous musical instrument powered by a set of behemoth bellows. The show ends with a 30-foot head made of colored banners, comically blinking its eyes and shooting smoke out of its ears. 5–11 p.m.
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