It felt more like July than October on Friday night in Pasadena, where the air lingered in the high seventies and the jacarandas were still pretending it was summer. But that didn’t stop hundreds of residents and visitors from spilling into the streets for ArtNight Pasadena, the city’s twice-yearly civic art pilgrimage produced by the City’s Cultural Affairs Division.
From the courtyard of City Hall, where the acoustic trio The Subs sang and strummed classic rock beneath the glowing dome, the
night radiated outward in every direction—an artful constellation linked by a small fleet of free shuttles.
Inside the rotunda, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater had the children transfixed—wooden ballerinas pirouetting under the marble arches, a tiny elephant bowing to applause. Outside, food trucks offered the more corporeal arts: Chinese dumplings, burgers, and ice cream sandwiches that melted almost as quickly as the night unfolded.
“I’m surprised at how hot it is,” laughed Ben Wong, who opted for the Metro A Line from Highland Park. “But the art was very cool.” His partner, Angela Del Fuentes, nodded, chopsticks in hand. “I’m mostly here for the Chinese dumplings,” she confessed.
The shuttles, moving in three directions—north, east, and south—carried art lovers through a kind of civic gallery crawl. Up north, the ArtCenter College of Design’s J-town gallery offered the Japan Car Design Collection, where the future gleamed in chrome curves and reverent lighting. To the east, the Fulcrum Arts Gallery projected films and lightworks onto its white walls, turning onlookers into shadows.
And in a darkened corner of the Armory Center for the Arts, the LightBringer Project’s “Lucid: Real or Unreal” shimmered—a hall of mirrors, movement, and sound that left visitors blinking as if they’d stepped out of a dream.
A few miles away, the Pasadena Playhouse hosted a cheerful open-mic cabaret, inviting passersby to belt out Broadway standards for an impromptu crowd. And at Boston Court Pasadena, the small but fearless performing arts center tucked into the city’s northwest
edge, guests gathered for short performances and a preview of their current production, The Night of the Iguana.
“Both people who have not been in the building before and those who’ve known us for years were happy to rediscover us tonight,” said Jessica Kubzansky, Boston Court’s artistic director. “We’re an
intimate performing arts center—twenty-one years old now—and we take risks. We do a lot of world premieres, reimagined classics, and music of every kind, from cabaret to mariachi. It’s an exciting place to land.”
Kubzansky explained that Boston Court’s programming is designed to reflect the city’s diversity—of stories, voices, and ideas. “We welcome everyone when they walk into the building,” she said. “And we hope they’ll see the breadth of what we do.”
Elsewhere at Boston Court, a quartet of USC musicians calling themselves Loca Saxophone Quartet took to a music room stage. They slipped from classical movie theme to a deadpan rendition of Bobby Pickett’s Monster Mash, and the crowd—families, students, retirees—happily nodded and tapped along.
As ten o’clock approached, the shuttles still hummed across the city, headlights tracing lines between art and audience. Pasadena felt like a single organism—open, creative, and a little sweaty..
The full lineup ran long—museums, studios, installations—but the heart of the event remained what it has always been: a civic love letter disguised as a festival.
As the last guitar chord faded at City Hall and the air cooled by a degree or two, Pasadena looked, briefly, like a city lit from the inside.
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