Some of these kids had visited the face-painting tent at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival's Top of the Park opening night on June 12. (Photo by the writer.)

If you’ve been to Ingalls Mall any evening over the past two weeks, you’ll likely have witnessed something similar to what The Chronicle observed on June 12: People standing along the sidewalks, sitting on cement walls and gathering on blankets on the shaded lawn. They push strollers and set up folding chairs. Children tumble with each other on the grass, shrieking, their faces painted with serpents and cherries.

All of them come for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival’s Top of the Park, with its free concerts, movies and food at Ingalls Mall. And if you haven’t been yet, there’s just over a week left to take advantage of this free, quintessential Ann Arbor event, which runs through July 5.

On opening night two weeks ago, Ann Arbor residents Mickey Sperlich and her husband Scott were kicking their heels up to the band FUBAR. They told The Chronicle they came to the festival for the dancing, the food and the people.

“It’s just a great outdoor, generally free event,” Scott Sperlich said.

The couple said they had been attending for years. “It’s a celebration of summer,” Mickey Sperlich said.

Marco Manchinelli, a performance artist, catches the attention of a passing child with his stilts and umbrella. (Photo by the writer.)

Behind the stage, Marco Manchinelli sat on a ledge near the steps of the University of Michigan’s Rackham School of Graduate Studies building. With his stilts, suspenders and strings of shiny Mardi-Gras-style beads around his neck, he caught the attention of many small children sitting on the building’s steps with their parents.

While the children watched with wide eyes, he pantomimed an argument with a puppet and handed out his beads and colorful, collapsible fans to those who approached him. He also wielded umbrellas decorated to look like animals – one looked like a ladybug, another a black-and-white spotted dog, complete with stick-up ears at the top.

As he wrapped tape around his feet to secure them to his metal stilts, Manchinelli explained that he’s been performing at the festival for three years so far. Although he lives in Clinton Township, he said he loves Ann Arbor.

“I feel free here,” Manchinelli said. “I feel like I can dance if I want to.”

He paused to offer a fan to a little girl who approached him, unfurling it for her while her mother stood watching them, smiling.

“I do this for the children,” explained Manchinelli, who described himself as a 56-year-old father of four. “I’m a child, too.”

Twelve-year-old Eva Martin, Josephine Hamilton (also 12), and thirteen-year-old Maddy Hancock stood in a cluster near the stage and the food vendors. Hamilton explained that they came to see their friends. The three all said they’d been to the festival a lot in the past. “When we were little, we came too,” Martin said.

In a shaded, grassy area of the mall, Nancy Weissman helped her 6-year-old son Zachary do handstands, holding his ankles for a brief moment before he tumbled back down onto the lawn.

“It’s so great,” Weissman said of Top of the Park, while Zachary did flips holding onto her hands for leverage. “Great entertainment, I see people I haven’t seen in a while. Food’s good. What’s not good?”

People dancing at Top of the Park on opening night, June 12. (Photo by the writer.)

Weissman, who said she’s been attending the festival for 18 years, also mentioned that the venue is great for kids. “It’s really a safe place,” she said. “They get to run around, be themselves and have fun.”

Top of the Park volunteer Lynn White stood near a donation station (printed with the slogan “Give 3. Keep TOP free”) handing out booklets of information on the festival and orange “I gave” stickers to those who gave money. Throughout the evening, festival volunteers and staff encouraged attendees to donate $3 for individuals or $5 for a family for their visit. According to the festival guides White passed out, Top of the Park takes roughly $300,000 per year to produce. That money comes from the University of Michigan, the city, local businesses and individual donors. Signs at Top of the Park reminded patrons that although admission is free, donations are “appreciated and necessary.”

White said this year’s festivities can help cheer people up if they’re depressed by the recent economic slump. She also said she enjoys seeing the diversity among Top of the Park’s attendees: “Seeing young people, teenagers and older people having a good time together, it’s really nice.”

About the author: Helen Nevius, a student at Eastern Michigan University, is an intern with The Ann Arbor Chronicle. 

Ann Arbor City Councilman Stephen Kunselman, right, works his day job as one of the organizers of this year's UM Energy Fest. He was talking with Rick Richter, who coincidentally is the second person in Ann Arbor awarded a permit to keep backyard chickens. That takes energy, too.

The sun was out for Tuesday’s 13th annual Energy Fest on the University of Michigan Diag, an event that drew students, faculty and other passers-by with the allure of giveaways (who doesn’t want another reusable grocery bag?) and information.

The centerpiece of the Energy Fest was the distinctive yellow Solar Car, parked prominently in the middle of the Diag.

Jeff Rogers, a senior majoring in computer science, has worked on the Solar Car Team four years, and was part of the crew that won this year’s North American Solar Challenge, a 3,862-km race from Texas to Calgary. His job was to ride in the lead support vehicle, monitoring data on a computer that was fed in from the solar car.

The data was important for both strategy and safety, he explained. With lithium-based batteries, “if you abuse them, they’ll explode.”

Jeff Rogers, left, part of the UM Solar Car Team, talks with Allan Afuah, a professor with the Ross School of Business.

The Sustainable and Renewable Energy Student Council also had a booth. The group was formed by UM students interested in creating sustainable energy solutions for developing countries, said Jojo Amonoo, a master’s degree student in mechanical engineering. They’re also pushing for more renewable energy use in the U.S., said Randy Schiffer, a sophomore in the nuclear division of the electrical engineering department.

This year’s Energy Fest – organized by UM’s Utilities & Plant Engineering department – is part of the university-wide Initiative on Energy Science, Technology and Policy, established by UM Vice President for Research Steve Forrest. That broader effort also includes a themed semester this fall for students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, who’ll be studying “human and social behaviors associated with energy demand,” according to the university.

Homecoming week, from Sept. 29- Oct. 4, gets in on the sustainable energy theme, too, with this year’s motto being, “Go Blue Live Green.” (But not Sparty green.)

Jim Horton makes a complimentary bookmark for a customer at Sunday's Kerrytown BookFest.

“We’re doing wonderful – once it stopped raining,” quipped Maryvonne Sarfati of The Bessenberg Bindery.

The Ann Arbor business wasn’t trying to sell anything today, but they’d made a lot of good contacts, said owner Jon Buller. Their table was arrayed with a spread of buttery leatherbound books, with covers so soft and textured that passers-by couldn’t help but pet them – despite polite signs asking them not to.

Down the aisle, Heather Buchanan of Aquarius Press was exhibiting for the first time at this event, and brought with her several authors of books she publishes.

They’d had brisk sales – better than expected – but she said the exposure to the Ann Arbor community was even better for her metro Detroit business.

More than 125 booths were set up throughout the Kerrytown Farmers Market area, with a section for children’s activities and one for mini-workshops put on by the staff of Hollander’s, a Kerrytown shop that sells specialty papers, bookbinding supplies and stationary.

The event also honored local artist and teacher Barbara Brown, who received this year’s Community Book Award. The award recognizes people who support books and book arts in the community.

Writers from Aquarius Press: Cheryl Coleman-Brown, Sylvia McClain, Heather Buchanan, Karen S. Williams and Felecia Studstill.

An official T-shirt on sale at Sunday's Kerrytown BookFest.

Even though temps approached 90 degrees today, people found the stamina to tango, swing and shimmy across the streets of downtown Ann Arbor for the annual Dancing in the Streets festival. The event is organized by the Ann Arbor Council for Traditional Dance & Music.

On Washington Street just east of Main, The Chronicle caught Susan Filipiak teaching the merengue, an appropriately hot Latin dance with a two-step beat. Apparently, it’s all about the hips.