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Night Fall Celebrates Changing Of Seasons At Pope Park

Live music, dancing, singing and giant puppets usher in the changing seasons Saturday, Oct. 12, at Pope Park as part of Hartford’s second Night Fall. Set ...

Live music, dancing, singing and giant puppets usher in the changing seasons Saturday, Oct. 12, at Pope Park as part of Hartford’s second Night Fall.

Set with the backdrop of the park’s pond, Night Fall is a free, outdoor celebration that features local visual artists and is heavily dependent on the community.

“We try to include the neighborhood that we’re in; we switch parks in Hartford every year,” says Anne Cubberly, lead artist and creative director of Night Fall. “We go into a different neighborhood and hopefully work the the talent in that neighborhood or the children in that neighborhood and include them in the performance if they want to be.”

The celebration, put on with a grant from the city, takes people through the changing of the seasons with song, dance, spoken word and carefully crafted giant puppets. The hourlong performance starts at 5:30 p.m., while it’s still daylight, and as it gets darker, the light is returned with with a parade of lanterns, and the winter solstice puppet appears to welcome the season soon to follow. Last year’s event featured recorded music; this year Ed Fast & Conga Bop provides live music.

The lanterns used in the performance were made by the community with repurposed materials in several workshops offered at the Dirt Salon, a Hartford artists’ venue, just another way the community will be involved in the event.

“For us Night Fall happens all year long, and then for the community it starts to really happen in the late summer,” says Cubberly. “There are opportunities for the community members to take workshops, make lanterns, learn how to dance a dance and either have something they created in Night Fall or perform themselves.”

>>Night Fall is Oct. 12 starting at 5:30 p.m. in Hartford’s Pope Park next to the pond. It is free and guests are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets and snacks.

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