By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Thanks to the pandemic and technology, art lovers don’t have to wait until Saturday evening to dive into ArtsX.
The annual celebration of the arts at Bowling Green State University has gone virtual and while premier performances will make their debuts on Saturday, Dec. 5, a website, bgsuarts.com, is already live and alive with music, visual arts, literature and dance with more to come.
This is the extravaganza’s 16th year. This year’s theme is “Dreams and Stories.” ArtsX started as a way to bring together all the arts clubs sales together and enlist participation by the other arts programs around campus.
It evolved to embrace the diverse, often unruly spirit of the arts with something happening at every turn in the Fine Arts Center and the Wolfe Center for the Arts.
Now with the pandemic, organizers are faced with keeping that spirit alive in a virtual form.
There will be demonstrations, art exhibits, readings, and performances. More is being added throughout the week.
And unlike the live event, all this will be available “asynchronously,” so viewers can visit at their leisure, and not worry about missing anything.
Judah Jubilee, a student in the School of Art, was involved in creating videos to promote the event. Last year, Jubilee had a fortune telling booth in the Wolfe Center. That was fun, but it meant she missed seeing any of the other activities.
Both Abigail Cloud, of the Creative Writing Program, and Kelly Mangan, of the Department of Theatre and Film, said their duties at ArtsX, kept them from fully experiencing previous extravaganzas.
Now as organizers of the virtual event, they are pleased to be able to open it up in a new way.
That includes broadening the scope of the audience, Mangan said. Attendees don’t have to find their way to Bowling Green, they could log in from anywhere.
This will also be an easy way for area residents who may have some hesitance about a campus event to sample what ArtsX has to offer.
On Saturday, there’s a schedule of performances that will premier.
At 3 p.m., a choral performance involving BGSU singers as well as singers from local high schools will be presented.
Two theatre troupes will serve as the special guests.
The Detroit-based Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers is “dedicated to the transformative quality of stories,” Mangan said. They’ve already had a workshop with middle and high school students, and will present another workshop at 3:30 p.m. Saturday followed at 6:30 p.m. by a performance.
The Ohio Playback Theatre, an improvisational troupe, brings stories from the audience to life. Their performance will be 5 p.m. On Friday at 2:30, the troupe will offer a workshop to prepare for the show.
At 8 p.m., Saturday, the Department of Theatre and Film will unveil its musical production of “The Theory of Relativity.”
“Through a seemingly unrelated collection of songs, scenes and monologues, this new musical introduces a compelling array of characters experiencing the joys and heartbreaks, the liaisons and losses, the inevitability and the wonder of human connection,” according to publicity materials.
This show is free to students, but will cost $8.75 for others. The show will be available on the site at least through May 21.
Most of the offerings will remain available at least through the end of the spring semester.
Mangan said one side benefit is that the site will help with recruitment. Any prospective student interested in the arts will be able to log in and get a taste of what students are engaged in.
That includes an original play for young audiences, “Lemonade Stand” by honors student Kate Tayler, presented as a staged reading.
Newphonia, an ensemble of first year doctoral student in Contemporary Music, performs “The Yeats Songs,” composed by Adam Har-zvi, who also plays bass in the ensemble.
A virtual exhibit of work by spring, 2020 Master of Fine Arts graduates is also included.
The website that houses all this was created by an outside developer, Cloud said. Given that investment, it will remain active to serve as a clearing house for information about all the arts on the BGSU campus.
It’ll be a one-stop shop for creativity on campus that will continue to serve area arts lovers well beyond the coronavirus pandemic.
