PIFA returns!

That's right, it's once again time for the biennial Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts! Last time the theme was France (or maybe Paris?), this year it is time travel. So not only is our backyard trapeze back (yay!), but there is also a dinosaur in front of our building.

His arms and head move, and they even trucked in sand and little palm trees for his environment. In other parts of the street, they brought in lots of sod and flowers to create pop-up parks.

This usually looks like this.

You can also see some of the street performers in that picture, those ones were dressed like giant sparkly insects. There were also some on stilts "riding" metal bird-horse creatures:

They could even make the creatures' mouths open and close

The coolest street performer was one of those living statue people, who danced to operatic music. She was the only living statue I've seen with a water feature.

Water streamed out of her fingertips, and even out the top of her head!

In addition to the street performers, there seemed to be a decent number of Renaissance Faire people, I think as part of the "time travel" theme.

A knight

A guy with a portable bellows-driven bubble machine

Lest we forget that time travel can take us to the future as well as the past, there was a robot that drove around talking to people.

Other things in the street that aren't usually there included a Ferris wheel:

And a bunch of guys welding something unidentifiable:

The centerpiece of everything was an elaborate "time machine" inside the Kimmel center, but it was probably the least interesting part of the festival, given that it was basically just a  walk-through tube that lit up and played odd noises.

Ben about to enter the "time machine." Time did pass inside it, but only at the usual rate.

Happily, there was another time machine that was much cooler:

Complete with flux capacitor!