The Parade was founded by Barbara Luecke and Peter Toms in 1989. Luecke and Toms were inspired by the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Parade and Celebration.[1] The Parade quickly grew to include thousands of participants and tens of thousands of spectators. The event is produced each June by the Fremont Arts Council (FAC), a non-profit organization based in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington that supports the arts and artists in and around the city. The Parade kicks off the Fremont Fair, which for many years was a benefit for Solid Ground (originally known as the Fremont Public Association).[citation needed]
The Fremont Solstice Parade is famous for its style and flair, political humor, energetic ensembles, and creative floats. It is also widely known for the body-painted Solstice Cyclists, who kick off the event each year by stripping nude and paint their bodies. The event is a slowly-paced music, dance and character procession where direct crowd interaction is encouraged and ensembles of actors in costume entertain with political and social commentary.[citation needed]
The Fremont Solstice Pageant, a large-scale community play using over a hundred actors, musicians and giant puppets, was performed following the parade from 1997 to 2005 at the end of the parade route at Gas Works Park.[citation needed]
The Parade distinguishes itself from other mainstream parades with the following unusual rules:
No printed words, signage or recognizable logos.
No live animals (except guide animals).
No motorized vehicles (except motorized wheelchairs)
The 2022 parade was scheduled for Saturday June 18. The parade was cancelled from 2020 to 2021, as announced on April 16, 2020, by the Fremont Arts Council coronavirus pandemic.[3]
Midsummer is a celebration of the season of summer, taking place on or near the date of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere; the longest day of the year. The name "midsummer" mainly refers to summer solstice festivals of European origin. In these cultures it is traditionally regarded as the middle of summer, with the season beginning on May Day. Although the summer solstice falls on 20, 21 or 22 June in the Northern Hemisphere, it was traditionally reckoned to fall on 23–24 June in much of Europe. These dates were Christianized as Saint John's Eve and Saint John's Day. It is usually celebrated with outdoor gatherings that include bonfires and feasting.
Fremont is a neighborhood in the North Central District of Seattle, Washington, United States. Originally a separate city, it was annexed to Seattle in 1891. It is named after Fremont, Nebraska, the hometown of two of its founders: Luther H. Griffith and Edward Blewett.
CowParade is an international public art exhibit that has featured in major world cities. Fiberglass sculptures of cows are decorated by local artists, and distributed over the city centre, in public places such as train stations, important avenues, and parks. They often feature artwork and designs specific to local culture, as well as city life and other relevant themes.
The Fremont Arts Council (FAC) is a community-run organization that supports arts and artists. The Council resides at the Powerhouse in Fremont, Seattle, Washington with members throughout the city.
The Lowell Folk Festival is the longest-running, and second-largest, free folk festival in the United States. Only Seattle's Northwest Folklife is larger, both in attendance and number of performance stages. It is made up of three days of traditional music, dance, craft demonstrations, street parades, dance parties, and ethnic foods. All of this is presented on six outdoor stages throughout the city of Lowell, Massachusetts.
Brighton Festival is a large, annual, curated multi-arts festival in England, first held in 1967. It includes music, theatre, dance, circus, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and family events, and takes place in venues in the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England, each May.
The Solstice Cyclists is an artistic, non-political, clothing-optional bike ride celebrating the summer solstice. It is the unofficial start of the Summer Solstice Parade & Pageant, an event produced by the Fremont Arts Council in the Fremont district of Seattle.
The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is an art parade held annually in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. The event, the largest art parade in the United States, is held each year in June and celebrates the arrival of the summer season. Created and produced by the non-profit arts organization Coney Island USA, the 40th annual parade was held on June 18, 2022.
A street fair celebrates the character of a neighborhood. As its name suggests, it is typically held on the main street of a neighborhood.
Luton International Carnival is a large carnival in Luton, Bedfordshire. The carnival is commissioned by Luton Borough Council and is artistically produced by UK Centre for Carnival Arts, which is based in Luton town centre.
Burning the Clocks is a winter solstice festival that takes place each year in Brighton, England. It has taken place since 1994 as a response to Christmas commercialisation.
The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere. The summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year in that hemisphere, when the sun is at its highest position in the sky. At either pole there is continuous daylight at the time of its summer solstice. The opposite event is the winter solstice.
Originating as a birthday celebration, Santa Barbara, California's Summer Solstice Parade began in 1974. This parade was created by Michael Gonzalez, a Santa Barbara resident and a mime and artist. The parade is the largest single-day event in Santa Barbara County, attracting crowds of 100,000 people or more. Weeks prior to the day of the parade, a workshop is opened where participating artists and technicians work with the community to conceive ideas, build floats, make costumes, and put their performances together.
HONK!, also known as HONK! Fest, is a festival of activist street bands held annually on Indigenous Peoples' Day weekend in Somerville, Massachusetts. Each year since 2006, an all-volunteer organizing community invites more than 25 bands from around New England, North America, and the world to participate in this free three-day event that showcases acoustic and ambulatory bands playing free music in public spaces. Since its inception, it has inspired additional HONK! festivals in other locations.
Formerly known as Auckland Festival, Auckland Arts Festival or Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Makaurau is an annual arts and cultural festival held in Auckland, New Zealand. The Festival features works from New Zealand, the Pacific, Asia and beyond, including world premieres of new works and international performing arts events.
Lucidity is an annual, three-day transformational festival in Santa Barbara, California.
The 2020 Moscow Victory Day Parade was a military parade that took place in Moscow's Red Square on 24 June 2020 to commemorate the 75th Diamond Jubilee of both the capitulation of Nazi Germany in the Second World War in 1945 and the historic Moscow Victory Parade of 1945.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a sudden and substantial impact on the arts and cultural heritage sector. The global health crisis and the uncertainty resulting from it profoundly affected organisations' operations as well as individuals—both employed and independent—across the sector. Arts and culture sector organisations attempted to uphold their mission to provide access to cultural heritage to the community; maintain the safety of their employees, collections, and the public; while reacting to the unexpected change in their business model with an unknown end.
The COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020 has significantly impacted liturgical celebrations of the Catholic Church worldwide. The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) stated that the pandemic has become not "just a medical, social and economic problem, but also a pastoral problem", which led ACN to start encouraging a special program for the actions of priests and religious against the virus spread.
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