The Connective Corridor will become an interactive stage for CRAVE, an innovative arts festival of 33 individual events designed to immerse Syracuse in a variety of visual and performing arts this Friday and Saturday, Sept. 20-21.
DJ Spooky
The two-day festival brings together collaborators to produce such diverse events as a “Happening” with DJ Spooky: That Subliminal Kid (free for SU and SUNY ESF students with valid I.D. and $22 for the general public); a Zombie “Thriller-style” flash mob dance; Café Club Surreal, an avant-garde after-hours circus and bistro orchestrated by SU Arts Engage; performance art on Connective Corridor buses; and a multi-media GLOW project by the 40 Below Public Arts Taskforce; along with performances, exhibitions and “pop-up events” developed by arts organizations staged across Syracuse’s Connective Corridor.
Among the regional arts organizations presenting special events at CRAVE in addition to their regular fall programming are Film in Syracuse, Jazz Central, Museum of Science and Technology (MOST), Red House, Paul Robeson Performing Arts Co., Society for New Music, Symphoria, Syracuse City Ballet, Syracuse Opera, Syracuse Stage and the YMCA Arts Branch.
Among the highlights:
Composer and turntable artist DJ Spooky: That Subliminal Kid (aka Paul D. Miller), artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will lead a multimedia “Happening,” joined by various local artists on Saturday, Sept. 21, at 8 p.m. in Goldstein Auditorium of SU’s Schine Student Center. Tickets for the general public are $22 and are on sale at the Schine Box Office (http://boxoffice.syr.edu/content/tickets.html). Tickets for SU and SUNY ESF students are free with a valid I.D.
DJ Spooky will also give a free public lecture on digital functionality and its useful relationship to presenting art on Friday, Sept. 20, at 2:30 p.m. in the auditorium of SU’s Life Sciences Complex; the lecture is part of the 2013 Syracuse Symposium; directions and parking information are available at http://symposium.syr.edu.
A special feature will be a Saturday, Sept. 21, zombie event, encouraging locals and visitors to become one of the walking dead, and perform in character during CRAVE. Aspiring zombies wishing to learn to dance are invited to assemble with acclaimed choreographer Shannon Tompkins for Thriller Dance Lessons at the Red House from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
All participants should wear disposable clothes (the better the costume, the better the street show), then walk into one of the make-up and costume stations from 1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. at La Dolce Vita, XL Projects or the Red House, and be professionally transformed by a team of effects/make-up experts from SRS Cinema. Then they can head out to create a “Thriller” flashmob at 4 p.m. at City Hall Commons (at the State Tower Building). Afterward, zombies are encouraged to dine out downtown, order zombies (the drink) and ride the free Corridor buses. The zombie immersion activities will be filmed.
Each night’s festivities will conclude with Cafe Arts Surreal, produced by SU Arts Engage, Friday and Saturday from 10 p.m. to midnight. The event, planned for the AXA Towers terrace, will feature Surreal, Grotesque, Avant-garde, Absurdist, Dadaist, Futurist and Agit-Prop interactive performances by CirqOvation and The Building Company. The event will take place in an outdoor coffee café bistro setting under the stars with jugglers, aerialists, clowns and the unexpected in a “cirque du noir” environment. Learn more at https://www.facebook.com/SUartsengage.
A Saturday morning “Creators’ Conclave” as part of CRAVE will demonstrate how the arts can revitalize communities by creating new benchmarks for content relevancy; creating innovative new performance models; and developing audience engagement strategies that turn fans into subscribers and subscribers into donors. The conclave will be led by Sam Read, creator of Seattle’s “Arts Crush” Festival.
More information about CRAVE—including conclave registration, lodging, parking, a detailed schedule and artist bios—is available at http://www.CRAVEfest.org.
