Residents come to ‘play’

The crowd spilled onto the Fourth Street sidewalk Friday night for the “Be Playful Bloomington: A Sampler of the Arts” event being held at the John Waldron Arts Center. \nThe event was put on through the combined efforts of the John Waldron Arts Center and the City of Bloomington. \nEd Vande Sande, executive director of the Bloomington Area Arts Council, said he was using the event to try to attract a more non-traditional Arts Center crowd. \n“It is really important to me to make this a community art center and to include all elements of the community so that all sorts of people can come and have a good time here,” Vande Sande said. \nThe event provided a variety of activities in which people could participate. Vande Sande said the City closed off part of Fourth Street so that vendors and street musicians were able to set up and turn the event into a community block party. \nThe event also included interactive displays, psychic readings, bingo, face painting and a variety of musical groups playing throughout the evening. \n“This is one of the city’s ‘Be Bloomington’ events, and they provided the funding that paid for the bands and that allowed us to make this a free event, which allows us to encourage the whole community to come out,” Vande Sande said. \nA lightning ball kaleidoscope caught the attention of many children at the event. Marc Tschida, performance and technical director for the Arts Council, said they wanted to present a lot of different things in small doses and let the community know where they could find everything around Bloomington. \n“We have a lot of programs the younger demographic doesn’t really know about,” Tschida said.\nThe musical groups varied throughout the evening to satisfy everyone who came. A family band with a 9-year-old rocking out on the drums impressed the crowd at the beginning of the evening, and as the time grew later the music grew louder. \n“We want to reach a younger crowd and let them know that this is their art center too,” Vande Sande said. “The community is going to continue to see a lot of younger focus as well as the traditional classical music and plays. We are definitely not forgetting the core constituency, but I think it is so important that we reach out to all age groups and that all age groups feel welcome.”\nAnna Bean, a recent IU graduate, came to the event around 7 p.m., to watch the band Metal in the Microwave perform later in the evening. \n“It’s a great atmosphere,” Bean said. “It’s like Bloomington came out.”