Platform shoes like you've never imagined and an art performance that connects North Side cultural organizations add up to "Paths to the Park," a free event with a high cool rating taking place from 5 to 7 p.m. May 29 in Allegheny Commons (West Park).

Last month, internationally known Brooklyn performance artist Julia Mandle led a workshop for Manchester Craftsmen's Guild Youth after-school students, teaching them to make her signature "chalk shoes," and helping to plan a performance artwork designed specifically for Pittsburgh.

She also taught them how to walk in the bulky, color-infused cast-plaster shoes in a way that marks where they've been, a talent the students will relay to representatives of a dozen North Side cultural institutions who will trace pathways from their organizations to the park's Lake Elizabeth.

Among groups taking part are the Carnegie Library, National Aviary, City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, Andy Warhol Museum, Children's Museum and Mattress Factory.

The public is invited to pack a picnic and gather to cheer them on as they arrive at the lake, as well as to participate in planned activities (rain date May 30).

The project is a collaboration with the New Hazlett Theater, whose executive director, Sara Radelet, saw Mandle in action at a New York conference and approached Manchester about hosting the artist. Support comes from the Grable Foundation as part of the innovative Charm Bracelet Project Fund, a North Side networking initiative.

The point of the performance is to draw attention to the wealth of cultural organizations that make their home on the North Side, as well as to the beauty of the park itself, by unexpectedly interrupting the daily routines of workers and residents.

"Pause" is the word that looms large atop the entries on Mandle's Web site, and it's the response she hopes to inspire through such interventions in an "increasingly distracted and disassociated world."

Her chalk shoes have trod locations as diverse as New York's proposed High Line Park and the streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, inviting contemplation of both the physical and human components of the urban landscape.

Mandle's earliest chalk shoe work, "Kalch" (Dutch for "chalk"), was inspired by a historic Lower Manhattan pond that was filled in in 1803. Eleven performers scuffed a yellow outline within the small, deteriorating concrete park that memorializes the pond, attracting thousands of passers-by and tourists during the hour-long 1998 event.

More somber are projects such as the current "Fabricating Rain," a response to the Iraq war that includes the hand-embroidering of Guantanamo Bay detainee-written narratives and poetry onto U.S. military-issue sandbags during public embroidery circles.

An exhibition documenting the Pittsburgh project will be shown June 15 to Aug. 30 at Manchester's satellite gallery, MCG@800 Penn Avenue, in the Cultural District, Downtown.

Before heading to the park, check out the 2009 Pittsburgh Public High Schools All City Arts Showcase this week at Manchester, featuring 321 works by students in grades 9 through 12.

This prestigious annual event not only gives students, whose work is submitted by their teachers, a place to shine, but the opportunity to compete for awards and scholarships, which this year capped $113,000.

Manchester spokeswoman Brittany Colatrella said they were particularly pleased, in this economic climate, to have been able to maintain an amount comparable to last year's. While some regular contributors did not give, new additions made up the difference.

Students may also choose to sell their artworks, includingpaintings, ceramics, photography, fiber, jewelry, prints, drawings, videos and mosaic work.

Fourteen jurors -- including artists, educators and museum professionals -- had the tough task of deciding which of these promising young people would receive awards.

Congratulations to all who were selected to participate in this cultural exchange, which is "a critical element in a democratic and hopeful society," as Joshua Green, Manchester youth & arts vice president of operations, writes.

Kudos also to the exhibitors in "Accomplishment 27," works made in the Guild's Youth & Arts programs, which opens with a free public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. June 5.

Coming soon is an exhibition at the Children's Museum born of an inter-generational Manchester June workshop that will combine food and interviewing, conducted by artists Lisa Link and Io Palmer.

It's encouraging that organizations such as Manchester, solidly rooted and committed, are finding ways to weather current economic storms.