CelebrateART Festival exhibits student talent

By Ellen Trinklein     1/16/13 6:00pm

Prepare yourselves, Rice University students. Sooner than you know, your hipster friends, laboratory partners, engineering roommates and those athletes you have never spoken to will be sharing their artistic talents at the second annual undergraduate-led CelebrateART Festival, Jan. 25-26. This year's festival, similar to last year's, will be held in and around the Rice Memorial Center and will showcase student works in visual arts, photography, film, music, dance, performance and fashion. The festival, sponsored in part by Rice Public Art, the Rice Student Activities President's Programming Fund and Saint Arnold Brewing Company, has expanded from one to two days in order to spread out the acts so that festival attendees will be able to experience more of the events.

According to visual arts committee co-head Andrea Romero, CelebrateART offers an opportunity for students of all majors to exhibit their artistic talents through a variety of media.

"It's a chance for those who have [or have not] taken art classes to show their work, for others to appreciate it and to learn about the talent on campus," Romero, a Martel College senior, said. "It's an effort to bring art to everyone on campus and to make them aware that there's a presence for students to pursue it either as their major or as their hobby."

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This year's festival has much more breadth than last year's, festival co-coordinator Jennifer Ding said. From festival T-shirts that attendees will be encouraged to doodle on to the current Fondren Library first-floor hallway installation of sticky notes, prompting students to answer the question "What inspires you?" CelebrateART is meant to not simply show students art on campus, but rather to involve them in it. Digital publicity for the festival has also demonstrated the lengths to which the CelebrateART team is willing to go in order to make art fun and accessible to the Rice community.

"We are exploring new mediums of art, such as film, to promote the festival. We have short, silly clips of Rice students, such as [Baker College sophomore] Andrew Stout drawing President [David] Leebron and [Hanszen College sophomore] Dante Zakhidov taking photos in the academic [quadrangle],"  Ding, a Baker sophomore, said. 

The festival lineup includes art galleries displaying 2-D, 3-D and digital art as well as photography, film screenings, a fashion show, music acts, dance performances, theatrical one-acts and a student art market. The art market will provide a platform both for individual students to sell their art and for clubs to recruit members with interactive activities.

On Friday night, visitors will want to catch the performance of student sketch comedy group Kinda Sketchy. The group performed at last year's festival to a crowd that filled all of Sammy's. This year, the group hopes to once again leave the audience in stitches.

While the art hanging from the gallery walls will be selected based on quality by the CelebrateART team, Ding said the goal of this year's festival is to engage as many Rice students as possible through accessible,

interactive media. 

"After a visit here, you'll find yourself leaving with an arm embellished with henna tattoos, a new commitment to a hip-hop crew and cool art that you have created," Ding said. "This year, we are focusing on the interactive nature of art through fun, artistic activities that literally anyone can and should try. Spray-painted T-shirts, a drum circle, stop-motion photography and dance workshops are just a few of the many things we have planned for people to experience art in an

unconventional way."

Other festival activities include a drawing circle and a photo booth hosted by the Intstitute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. There will also be an art gallery reception on Friday night, at which winning artworks will be announced; the winners will be selected by a panel of judges made up of professionals involved in the arts both at Rice and in the greater Houston community.

According to Romero, the variety of visual art submissions looks promising so far. 

"We've received works in every category," Romero said. "I was surprised about the amount of sculptures and digital art

we've received."

CelebrateART also boasts a full music schedule, with acts performing in venues including the Rice Memorial Chapel, Ray Courtyard and the Grand Hall, music committee co-head Alexandra Krawetz said.

"Some performance highlights include [McMurtry College senior] Jess Walker, students of the Shepherd School of Music and various bands, such as Fire Alarm," Krawetz, a Will Rice College freshman, said. 

The festival will also feature five- to 10-minute lectures from musicians such as DJ Chaney (Will Rice senior Clayton Chaney); Shepherd School of Music associate professor of composition and theory Anthony Brandt; and professor of physics and astronomy Frank Toffoletto, who teaches Rice's Physics of Music class, Krawetz said.

CelebrateART's GuerrillaART, which is publicity in the form of quirky art installations set up around campus, will kick off the final push for advertising in the week before

the festival.

"This annual tradition of covering campus with crazy art installations overnight is one of my favorites, and I can't wait to see how things turn out this year," Ding said.

For more information about the festival, visit celebrateart.rice.edu.

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