Scenes from iNGENUiTY 2006 - Thursday

The weather could not have been more perfect - well, the humidity was a little high.
There must have been close to 3,000 people (including percussionist) on Public Square for Halim el Dabh's "Symphony of 1000 Drums." With the help of Blake, the director, the crowd listen to el Dabh's tribalistic songs of peace and harmony. I'm fairly certain if this was happening in a more progressive city, the whole crowd would have been dancing... but not Cleveland residents.

After the 45 minute long set, the Shaw High School Marching Band led the crowd from Public Square to Prospect Avenue, the main street for the festival while Euclid Avenue is under reconstrctuion for the Euclid Corridor Project.

I have to admit, when I saw Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson walking down the street around 6:30, I thought "Here we Go!", but about an hour and a half later, he was still here talking to whoever wanted to speak to him... that was nice to see. I wonder if he will come back down any time during the rest of the festival.

The night time crowd was a little on the lite side, but it was Thursday. It was still nice to see the streets full of people.

I loved the WAVE East 5th Street Stage. What a cool, intimate place for bands to play. It was crowded, but that lent to the environment. All that was missing was a clous of second-hand cigarette smoke... or at least a smoke machine to give it that old club feel.

The last performance of the evening was in the May Company Building stage. (Wow, what an environment for performances!) Apotheosis gave the crowd a mind boggling mix of breakdancing, and video and audio Mash-ups. Very cool stuff.

I did not go on Friday - I knew it was going to be crappy out and did not want to deal with everyone running around trying to get away from the rain. I will most likely be there on Saturday and Sunday.
If you want to see al 42 pictures from Thursday, goto my Flickr set, here.

There is also a Flickr pool that has photos from last year and this year on it here.