Parade on Your Rain re-imagines the concept of the marching band, in which highly synchronized marshall music is replaced with the irregular, gentler sounds of a distant rainstorm, produced by a loosely knit group of performers, on ad hoc, handmade “instruments.” The link between rain and parades, familiar enough to have become a metaphoric figure of speech, is inverted: the parade becomes a kind of rain ceremony, in which the mimicry of a downpour offers a subtler alternative to the ostentatious sounds common to military and sporting contexts. Though the performers of Parade on Your Rain join in a communal act of mimicry, the concept of a storm suggests the discord and unpredictability inherent in any group.

Participants in Parade on Your Rain were initially invited from the University of Toronto Mississauga joint program with Sheridan College Art & Art History program where Rhonda Weppler currently teaches. Instruments, inspired by the rich history of foley devices for theater and film, were made by the students and a public workshop using a wide variety of household materials, including tin cans, cardboard tubes and other scrap. During the event student performers are joined by the public, allowing the audience to become part of the performance.

The float is led by a surreal, alternative version of a drum major and completed with a 20 foot long, wispy, pastel rainbow “tail,” signaling the end of the passing weather.