October 23-29, 2003

mixpicks

Peoplehood Parade

Don’t forget about Peoplehood: Sure, Spiral Q’s never been busier -- right now preparing for a Halloween-night spectacle next week -- but this year as much as ever their October parade recognizes the city’s community spectrum. Groups participating this year include some "real little people," as founder Mattyboy Hart puts it: 6- to 8-year-olds from Audenreid Beacon will take part, all performing as forms of transportation past and present, from horses to planes. The theme is "We Remember," a process of bearing witness to the ways things used to be, and as they now are. The theme breaks down into three areas: Environmental, "remembering when there were streams instead of polluted water fountains," then Community, examining life in the city. And Girard Medical Center, a group focused on helping the mentally ill and those in recovery, will dominate the final chapter, recognizing "Personal" victories and changes.

The parade will loop around from the Paul Robeson House to Clark Park -- and there the spectacle will begin, aided by a Greek-style chorus of the Q’s best-remembered giant puppets. "At the end," says Hart of the show’s finale, "we have the choice of confronting ignorance, racism and gentrification by remembering how things used to be and now are, or simply turning a blind eye."

Peoplehood Parade, Sat., Oct. 25, 1 p.m., free, Paul Robeson House, 4951 Walnut St., 215-222-6979, www.spiralq.org.

—Juliet Fletcher