Annual arts festival will have light-themed activities
LIGHT THE WAY: “Light of Reason” by Chris Burden was the inspiration for the theme for this year’s Festival of the Arts.
This year, the theme for the annual Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Art will be “light.” The Festival is a week of arts productions spanning creative disciplines. It is sponsored by the University’s Office of the Arts and is produced by a planning committee, a faculty advisory and the Office. The planning for the Festival is already under way as proposals are due on Wednesday.
In an interview with the Justice, Acting Director of the Office of the Arts Ingrid Schorr said that the theme of light was inspired by Christopher Burden’s installation “Light of Reason,” a site-specific sculpture that sits in front of the Rose Art Museum.
“Often, the theme comes from applications and proposals, and we sort of find the threads in common whether it’s community or identity or whatever we say, ‘oh that’s the theme.’ But this year it just seemed a shame to pass up ‘light’ because we have the ‘Light of Reason,’” said Schorr. She also mentioned it is the International Year of Light and Light Based Technologies for UNESCO. Schorr says that there is talk about collaborating with UNESCO.
Schorr also mentioned that the committee is hoping for lots of programming centering around the “Light of Reason.” “It will be a stage,” said Schorr, “We’re hoping that there will be concerts and spoken word performances and fashion shows.”
One of the programs in the works, according to Schorr, is a storytelling performance based on oral histories. For the program, Prof. David Sherman (ENG), who teaches the Justice Brandeis Semester class “Storytelling and Social Practice” will work with the “Introduction to Creativity, the Arts and Social Transformation” class taught by Cynthia Cohen. Schorr also said that there have been proposals from neuroscientists regarding light but could not elaborate further—most programs are not confirmed.
In terms of outside talent, Schorr says that the committee is talking to an artist who has created a chess game played with lit candles used as pieces. “We want to get 500 people to play chess outside the Rose Art Museum after dark,” said Schorr.
The Brandeis Theater Company production A Night on the Clowns, a clowning show directed by Kenny Raskin ’74, and the annual Senior Festival are already set to perform that week and add to the festivities.
The Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts will run from April 23 through 26.
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