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.