‘Billiken,’ new short film about Chicago’s Bud Billiken Parade, spotlights parade’s young dancers

“Billiken,” a new short film showing this summer as part of Art on theMART, centers on the youth dancers of Chicago’s historic Bud Billiken Parade, the largest and longest-running African-American parade in the United States. (WBEZ)

Around 10 p.m. on a recent night, Wills Glasspiegel went to the Merchandise Mart to test-run “Billiken,” a new, eight-minute art film he co-directed with Shkunna Stewart, with animation by Brandon K. Calhoun.

He wasn’t preparing the film for a screening inside a theater. He was getting ready for something bigger, with the movie to be projected onto the mammoth, 340,000-square-foot facade of the Merchandise Mart.