Two celebrations turned downtown Ann Arbor into a moving stage this weekend, with students and community members filling the streets first on Friday evening for the 16th annual FoolMoon festival and then on Sunday afternoon for the 20th annual FestiFools parade.
At FoolMoon, participants carried illuminated paper and wire figures through the city under this year’s theme, “Fools of a Feather,” and hoisted luminaries shaped like birds and other winged creatures. The event began at three stations — the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Kerrytown Farmers Market and Slauson Middle School — before all three groups converged at the corner of Ashley Street and Washington Street, where live music from Neutral Zone’s Battle of the Bands and Battle of the Voices winners filled the endpoint.
FestiFools followed on Sunday with a parade down Main Street, where community members gathered to watch students carry jumbo handcrafted puppets of different creatures. Attendees were encouraged to dress according to their interpretation of the theme, “Back to the FOOLture,” giving downtown a carnival feel that mixed costume, performance and sculpture in one procession.
The puppets and luminaries did not appear by accident. Students made them in a Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts class called “Art in Public Spaces,” taught every winter semester by Mark Tucker, who founded both FoolMoon and FestiFools. Tucker said he had the chance to build parade floats in Italy while working for Detroit’s Thanksgiving parade, then brought that idea back to Ann Arbor when he began working with the Lloyd Scholars program.
The work happens in the LSWA studio in the back of the Division of Public Safety and Security’s Campus Safety Services Building outside the Crisler Center, where students build figures that can carry more than decoration. Engineering junior Kenneth Su volunteered at the event and said he first took the class two years ago, drawn by the chance to try something new in college. He said the process starts with wire shaped into circles or geometric forms, then connected, wrapped in clear tape, covered with glue and tissue paper, and finally strung with lights.
Su said he came back because he loved the experience. Tucker, who teaches the class every winter semester, has turned that classroom work into one of Ann Arbor’s most visible public traditions, and this year’s puppets showed how far the project has moved beyond simple spectacle. Some carried political messages, including an alien ship ringed by protest signs and caricatures of government officials, while LSWA Director Scott Beal said the figures let students express larger ideas artistically. “I love the spirit of foolishness and creativity and a way of reflecting on our world in ways that are,” Beal said.
That is why the weekend mattered beyond the pageantry: the city’s most recognizable spring street events were once again powered by students, volunteers and a classroom that turns art into public conversation. The parade may have ended at Main Street and Ashley Street, but the work behind it shows why Ann Arbor keeps showing up for FoolMoon and FestiFools year after year.
