Rafael Ferrer, a native of Puerto Rico who moved to Philadelphia in 1966, created El Gran Teatro de la Luna for the Fairmount Park Art Association’s Form and Function project. Now temporarily in storage, the work formed a tropical crown around the roof of a concrete utility building that was removed from the site.

Vividly colored aluminum acrobats tumble and cavort. The silhouette figures include a female dancer-gymnast, a juggler balancing on a pyramid of spheres, a person with a bright red dress and a mustache standing on his/her head, and strange, devilish performers doing tricks on wheels. Lowercase script letters spell out the title, El Gran Teatro de la Luna—"The Huge Theater of the Moon."

The moon is recalled in the wheels and balls used as the acrobats' props, and it becomes a symbol for the inspiration behind the performance. Observers have seen both joy and frenzy in the postures and the extravagant epoxy colors, which range from red and pink to lavender and chartreuse.

A current proposal for the site, Glorietas of Fairhill Square by Jaime Suárez, incorporates a pavilion that could provide a new base for Ferrer’s work.

Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).