The central image of Parade is a parade of clowns, and a marching band. For Crystal Pite, the parade felt like an apt image of imagination, absurdity, and ritual. The play between the disorganized clowns and the rank-and-file marching band exemplifies the tension between instinct and intellect, rational and irrational, unconscious and conscious. Parade looks inward towards the frontiers of the human mind: imagination, dreams, creativity.