Arts Week Everywhere kicks off with dance lessons, free performances

With so many events planned, this year’s IU Arts Week Everywhere will actually span an entire month.

Arts administration graduate student Kristin Gregory said Arts Week was pushed back from the usual February schedule to April for students in the Marketing and Audience Development in the Arts class to have more planning time.

More than 50 events are included in AWE, Gregory said.

“Because there was so much art already happening, they decided to do all of the month of April,” Gregory said. “We’re working with BPP (Bloomington Playwrights Project), Cardinal Stage and IU Opera and Theater with their events that are already in existence.”

Sponsored by the IU Office of the Provost and coordinated by Master of Arts Administration students, AWE launched with a party at the IU Art Museum on Sunday evening.

Community member and WFHB disc jockey Cynthia Roberts sat in the atrium as the sounds of Abigail St. Pierre playing harp carried from the second floor earlier in the evening.

Roberts said she is interested in the arts but described herself as more of a crafts person. She discussed leaving the event for IU Cinema, where Japanese-American director Tadashi Nakamura was scheduled to make an appearance during a showing of three of his documentaries.

Arts administration graduate student Lois Luo played the guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument, in the first floor atrium at about 6:10 p.m.

Outside, sophomore Crystal Wespestad and junior Nate Wavle from the IU Ballroom Dance Club taught attendees how to swing dance.

“Swing would be fun,” Roberts said. “But I didn’t wear the right shoes.”

Gregory said the launch was a first for Arts Week, so she wasn’t sure what kind of audience it would generate.

“For a Sunday evening, the amount of people that are out here, I’m pleasantly surprised,” Gregory said.

The diversity of acts at the launch will be mirrored throughout the month, Gregory said.
After the launch, a 3-D projection show covered the Sample Gates, accompanied by an ensemble from the Jacobs School of Music.

In addition to planned music, theater and arts events, “creative happenings” will continue to occur around campus.

These will include flash mobs, improvised singing performances and contemporary dancing in popular campus locations, according to the AWE website.

At the launch event, Wavle said it was great to see people trying to learn to swing dance. He acknowledged that people didn’t specifically come to learn to dance and that it could have been nerve-wracking to do it in public.

“We threw a lot of moves at them, and they got it all,” Wavle said. “They had a good time, that’s the most important part.”

For a full list of events, visit artsweek.indiana.edu or download the ArtsWeek app for iPhone and Android. Check out tomorrow’s IDS for additional AWE coverage.