Out of the hundreds of amazing events that take place in Baltimore every year, the Urbanite staff picked its favorites. These are the events that make us say, "Wow! We're glad we live here."


July 21, 22, 28, 29, 2007
You never know where you'll see this performance troupe. One year Fluid Movement is re-enacting Charles Darwin's struggle for scientific credibility in It's a Wonderful Species; but no sooner have performers learned to walk on dry land than they're back in the water synchronizing dog paddles for an aquatic take on Tolstoy's epic, War and Fleas. These site-specific works are performed in wet and dry venues across the city, so if you're in Baltimore, consider yourself a guest on their set. (fluidmovement.org)


High Zero Festival
September 24–30, 2007
Every September, musicians from around the globe descend upon Baltimore to celebrate the experimental and to challenge what we traditionally consider music. A Japanese artist may connect his heart to a hi-powered bass amp via a stethoscope and a computer, or a local performer may "play" a block of dry ice with piping hot cymbals. Just about anything goes. The only thing that doesn't fly is convention. (highzero.org)


The Great Halloween Lantern Parade
October 27, 2007
The spookiest night of the year has evolved into a celebration of community in Patterson Park. More than a thousand costumed revelers bearing painted lanterns parade through the park. Crowds await their arrival for the grand finale Magic Lantern Show, where artists blend shadow puppetry and Victorian magic-lantern techniques to illustrate epic stories on a forty-foot-high screen. "The challenge," says Megan Hamilton, program director for Creative Alliance, which cosponsors the event, "was to think of a way for people to claim the park as their own after dark." It's worked. By the end of the night, fear has been replaced by a shared sense of wonder. (nanaprojects.com)


A Monumental Occasion
December 6, 2007
In a city where residents stock up on milk and toilet paper at the slightest chance of snow, it is all the more remarkable that hundreds of people happily endure the cold for the lighting of the Washington Monument. Carolers, civic leaders, and celebrities join the crowd as fireworks illuminate the nighttime sky. Considered the kick-off event of the holiday season, little has interrupted it in thirty years—except, well, the occasional snowstorm. (godowntownbaltimore.com)


Maryland Film Festival
May 2008
Not every visitor to Baltimore can boast about the great time he or she had on an impromptu pub crawl with John Waters, but that's exactly what some Maryland Film Festival directors walked away with last year. The festival seems to engender just these types of interactions. No prizes are awarded. There aren't even any categories—just the best and most diverse films organizers could find under the non-negotiable requirement that each director appear live to discuss his or her film. And if John Waters is buying, who wouldn't stop by? (md-filmfest.com)


Open Studio Tour
October 20 & 21, 2007
Baltimore is often admired as a city without pretension. This may explain why more than one hundred artists open their workspaces to total strangers every year for School 33 Art Center's Open Studio Tour—and if Jody Albright, School 33's director, has her way, you'll never see them all. "Inevitably you end up talking to one artist for hours," she says approvingly. And hey, there's always next year. (school33.org)


Night of 100 Elvises
November 30 & Dec 1, 2007
For one weekend every year, Baltimore rivals Graceland. Elvis fans, Elvis-styled bands, and Elvis tribute artists from as far away as Germany sing, dance, and drink themselves into a frenzied Elvis fever. "You just about go crazy," says event cofounder Carole Carroll. After thirteen years of perfectly pitched mayhem, the King is—don't you dare say "would be"—incredibly proud.
(nightof100elvises.com)


Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
May 3, 2008
When our fossil fuels run dry, veterans of this race will be prepared. Contestants use nothing but manpower and imagination to propel their vehicles across pavement, water, mud, and sand. Lasting as long as a baseball double-header, the race is not for the weak. Or for anyone dead-set on "winning" in the conventional sense: Inventive bribes for the officials are encouraged and the most prestigious award goes to the team that finishes in the middle of the pack. (kineticbaltimore.com)


Sowebohemian Arts and Music Festival
May 25, 2008
The Sowebohemian Arts and Music Festival is arguably the biggest house party in Baltimore. It is hyper-local, with much of the talent drawn from the neighborhood. Here, submissions are not vetted and art is not judged. Last year, in another nod to populism, the coordinators added an open-to-all parade to "spotlight the inner artist in all of us." (soweboarts.org)


Charles Village Parade and Festival
June 7 & 8, 2008
For one day every year, Charles Villagers—from school children to cheerleading chickens to invisible-baton twirlers frantically dropping and tossing their imaginary sticks—band together and march the wrong way up Saint Paul Street. "For me it's always been symbolic to go against the traditional flow," says parade founder Steven Rivelis. "It's a visible demonstration of owning your own city and owning your own pavement and owning your own community"—any way you please. (charlesvillage.net)

—Editorial interns Heather Rudow and Svetlana Shkolnikova assisted in researching this article.

Leave a Comment Here