Sunday, May 19th, 2024
In partnership with Open Streets Knoxville & SOCM
Line-Up: 2pm (N. Central & Emory Place)
Kick-Off: 3pm
Block Party: 3:30-6pm (N. Central & Baxter Ave)
Open Streets: 2-6pm (N. Central from Emory Pl to Oklahoma Ave)
Open Streets Knoxville
This year's parade is part of Open Streets Knoxville, a free event that encourages the use of active transportation (walking, biking, rollerblading, and more), promotes healthy living, and gives participants an opportunity to reimagine our streets as public space! Sections of N. Central St. and Emory Place will be closed to vehicular traffic and filled with art & play activities for all ages, food trucks, and more from 2-6pm.
The Cattywampus Parade will kick off at 3pm and process along the Open Streets route, concluding at the corner of N. Central & Baxter Ave with a Block Party from 3:30-6pm, featuring local hip-hop, drumming, dance, a giant puppet skit, and more. You don't wanna miss it!
Now in its 7th year, Cattywampus’s people-powered Parade & Street Party has become an annual tradition in Knoxville. It brings together diverse and intergenerational cross-sections of our community to play, create, and build relationships with one another, while using the visual and performing arts as tools to help tell our stories and vision what futures we might create together.
Community members of all ages are invited to make giant puppets, masks, costumes, and other art and come together to parade as one. The parade is free and open to all!
We are grateful to all of the community partners who’ve collaborated with us over the years to make each parade year unique, including the Big Ears Festival, who co-hosted in 2022 & 2023, alongside musical guests the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Aurora Nealand & the Royal Roses, RAM, 79rs Gang, and others. This spring, we’re excited to bring our 2024 Parade to Bike Walk Knox’s Open Streets event on Central Ave in Happy Holler.
ABOUT THE PARADE THEME
2024 Parade Theme: We Dwell Together
For the past several years, Knoxville residents have experienced a rapid increase in general cost of living and an even steeper increase in housing costs. With stagnant wages, few existing legal protections for renters, and insufficient resources to offset rising housing costs, many folks are being pushed out of their communities and facing housing insecurity.
Sheltering in our community’s power, Cattywampus is asking all of us this parade season to consider what it means to dwell in Knoxville together without feeling squeezed or pinched for our last dime. To imagine, dream and bring to life a city that cultivates affordable, safe, & healthy housing for all. A community of belonging for everyone. We know that housing justice is rooted in a desire to care for and protect one another. We know that when neighboring becomes an action, space and places become home. We invite each of you to make giant puppets, costumes or any other handmade & people-powered creations inspired by this vision of collective care and abundance and come together to parade as one on Sunday, May 19th!
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Sign-up to be in the parade! This parade is open to the entire community. Individuals, families, schools, neighborhood groups, and organizations are all encouraged to participate. We are looking for folks to make masks, puppets, and costumes, as well as dancers and stiltwalkers. You are welcome to create your own entry or form your own parade crew and make something together. We’ll also have extra art available to carry if you simply want to join in the parade itself. All participants must register (It’s free!).
Make Art! Cattywampus will be hosting a variety of art making workshops and open studio days leading up to the Parade. Learn about upcoming Workshops & Open Studio Days on our Events Page. You can also visit our “Resources” page to access our free Giant Puppet Making & Parade Art Manual, images, templates, and other instructions to get inspired.
For questions or info about how to get your school, organization or community group involved in the 2024 parade, please use the contact form here or email Rachel Milford at cattywampuspuppetcouncil@gmail.com.
PARADE PROGRAMMING
Although the parade itself is a one-day event, the programming leading up to it begins months in advance. Each parade season, Cattywampus hosts:
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Youth Art Residencies at 10 different community partner sites. Our 2024 youth community partner sites included Centro Hispano’s after-school programs at Belle Morris Elementary, Norwood Elementary, West View Elementary, Lonsdale Elementary & Pellissippi State Community College; Boys & Girls Club sites at Vestal, Montgomery Village, & Western Heights; Canvas Can Do Miracles and the Wesley House. Over the course of 2-3 months, Cattywampus teaching artists and youth interns support students at these sites in designing and creating their own giant puppets and parade art inspired by the year’s parade theme. As the culmination of this project, students then form their own parade crews and have the opportunity to share their creations with the community.
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A paid Youth Intern Squad that pairs local high schoolers with our Youth Art Residency sites throughout the community.
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Giant Puppet Making Workshops and Open Studio Days for organizations, schools, neighborhood groups, and other individuals who want to learn how to make art and organize their own parade crew. Check our events calendar, sign up for our mailing list, and follow us on Instagram to find out when our next workshop is!
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The Knox Honkers & Bangers, a new, raucous, hot pink, and inclusive community brass band Cattywampus piloted in 2023. This band is open to all! Join us!
THANK YOU TO OUR 2024 SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
This project is funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission, as well as through the UTK CURCI program, Alternate Roots, and an Arts Builds Community TAC grant.