Imagine: It’s a sunny, Friday summer evening and you’re driving down Woodward Avenue. The light turns red and you stop at the intersection at Kirby when a very tall man wearing black and wielding a giant crop leads his three dinosaurs across Woodward. This man speaks a strange language and the dinosaurs roar and rumble as they curiously observe their surroundings. They cross the street and the light turns green. You just drove past the Detroit Festival of the Arts, and what a festival it was.

The above act, Sau’rus, came from the Close-Act Visual Theatre, which is based in the Netherlands. Men on stilts, who were hidden by veils, wore the dinosaur outfits with long necks and jeweled heads. Although it was obvious to adult spectators that there were people in the suits, some children clung to their moms for dear life. These dinosaurs, all acting with comedic intent, walked through the crowds terrorizing the unsuspecting and unaware.

There were plenty of great shows at the Festival, along with some great art. Just as the University Cultural Center hoped to draw attention to their organization in co-hosting the event (see our preview feature on the Festival), the artists who showed up hoped to spread word about their art. Those who attended the Festival saw some great acts, and for those who didn’t go or didn’t get to see every thing, here’s a quick rundown of a few of the acts in town on just the first Friday evening.

Lelavision, a music and dance group, played several of their ingeniously designed instruments while performing humorous choreography. One instrument was a spinning metal tube with a wide bottom and narrow top. The two performers climbed upon it as it spun and plucked strings attached to it and then one performer fell inside, where he began playing music from within. The most impressive instrument, though, was a giant harp that lay on its side. The performers wore gloves and rubbed their rears and hands against the strings in order to create music. They played a jig, a game of catch with sound, and some tug of war. Apparently, they have several more neat instruments, including some that are much too large to lug around. For more information on Lelavision, visit their website at lelavision.com.

A few international bands had a chance to play some music and sell their CDs. This included the Screaming Orphans, an Irish pop/rock band consisting of four Irish girls, who played guitar, bass guitar, drums, and accordion for their own stuff, and then pulled out a violin and an Irish drum to play traditional Irish music. Another band was a Cambodian pop/rock band called Dengue Fever. The only Cambodian in the group, admittedly, was the singer Chhom Nimol, a pop star in Cambodia who is relatively unknown in the U.S. Nimol sang in her native language as the band played both their own music and covers of other Cambodian bands. There were plenty of other bands at the Festival during the whole weekend, with a mix of music from around the world.

Another big draw was Osadia, a pair of hair sculptors from Spain who pulled people from the audience and created intricate designs in their hair. They painted the hair and shaped it into whatever design they saw in their heads, just like a sculptor looking at a block of marble and seeing their work of art within it. Some patrons walked away with stuffed toys in their hair, but everyone walked away with a smile on their face. Osadia’s final hair sculpture was done on a bald man, who very happily walked away with a Mohawk made of koosh balls. To see more information on this pair, visit osadiaonline.com.

If you missed the Detroit Festival of the Arts this year, you missed out on a lot of diverse cultural experiences, so be sure to come next year when the Festival returns with some old favorites and new shows and plenty of fun for everyone.

Chris Thompson is the Motor City’s hardest working intern.