The Horn Player,
1961 Emma-Marie Bartelme, oil on canvas, 16 1/2 x 15, collection of Robert
Aichele
The 13th annual
Festival of the Arts at California State University, Sacramento March 7 to 18,
is a two-week celebration encompassing all areas of arts and culture offered
by the University including art, dance, design, literature, music, photography,
and theater.
An eclectic schedule of University and University-hosted exhibits, performances
and talks make up the festival, now a leading regional arts extravaganza that
attracts thousands to Sacramento State. Parking on campus is free in student,
faculty and staff spaces an hour before, during and after most festival events,
and many events are free.
The festival officially kicks off with opening ceremonies from 5:30 to 6:30
p.m., Monday, March 7 in the University Union Hinde Auditorium.
Also opening on March 7 is the “Bay Area Figuration Show” featuring
works by Bay Area artists from the '50s and '60s including David Park, Richard
Diebenkorn, Elmer Bishoff and others. The exhibit runs through May 22 in the
expanded University Library Gallery. A reception is set for 5 to 8 p.m., March
11 in the gallery.
The festival keynote address by artist Carrie Mae Weems follows on March 8 in
the University Union Hinde Auditorium. Weems is a widely recognized artist committed
to social change who works primarily as a photographer, but has employed banners,
text, sculpture and sound in her artistic explorations of race, class and gender.
Festival visual arts highlights continue with an art history symposium, “Figuring
the Body,” set for March 12 in Mariposa Hall 1000. The afternoon will
feature the lecture “The Not Still Life: Yvonne Rainer's Short Films and
the Body as Object in the 1960s” by Carrie Lambert-Beatty of Harvard University.
Student exhibits and other events are scheduled during the festival as well.
Ancestral Memories by Sacramento Black Art of Dance, the University’s
premiere dance group, will focus on the multicultural heritage of its own performers
and feature towering puppets. The show opens March 10 in the University’s
Dancespace at Solano Hall 1010. Festival performances continue March 11 to 13
and 16 to 20.
Design events kick off with a talk by senior lecturer Katherine McCoy from the
Chicago Institute of Design on March 10 in the University Union Hinde Auditorium
in connection with an exhibit of her work in the University Library Gallery.
Poetry is featured at several festival literature events starting with a talk
by poet Troung Tran on March 9 in the University Library Gallery. Tran has authored
four collections of poetry including Duet and Conscience, winner of
the 2002 San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Prize. Poet Donald Revell will
speak March 11 in Mariposa Hall 1000, poet Jeanne E. Clark will speak at March
18 in the University Library Gallery, and novelist and short story writer Thomas
Jeffery Vasseur, whose collection Discovering the World was nominated
for the Townsend Prize, will speak March 15 in the University Library Gallery.
Festival music events include the Indian classical and fusion sounds of Ancient
Future featuring Pandit Habib Khan on sitar, Matthew Montfort on scalloped fretboard
guitar and Debopriya Sarkar on tabla on March 13 in the Music Recital Hall in
Capistrano Hall. Other performances include the Sacramento State Saxophone Ensembles
on March 9 in Capistrano Hall 151, a flute recital by Sacramento State professor
Laurel Zucker with special guest pianist Marc Shapiro on March 10 also in Capistrano
Hall 151, and much-anticipated spring performance by the Sacramento State Choirs
on March 12 at Sacred Heart Church at 1040 39th St. The Dorian Wind Quintet
will perform during the festival as well as part of the University’s ongoing
New Millennuim Concert Series on March 18 in the Music Recital Hall. A variety
of other musical performances are also on tap during the festival.
Theater is represented by the innovative three-character play by Puerto Rican-born
playwright José Rivera, Cloud Tectonics, which opens March 11
in Playwrights’ Theatre. Performances continue March 12-13 and 17-20.
Sacramento State professor Manuel Pickett directs the play which follows Anibal
de la Luna, a disillusioned baggage handler at the Los Angeles International
Airport, and his enchanted experiences with a mystical pregnant hitchhiker,
Celestina del Sol, who never ages. The production is presented as part of the
University’s Latino Theatre program.
Tickets for events are available from the CSUS Ticket Office at (916) 278-4323
or Tickets.com.
