![spark in the dark mesa arts festival spark in the dark mesa arts festival](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/24/2f/ba242ff22569116c45aadd7f8b7b975c.jpg)
48, Work – Image from Leah and The Rabbit – Photo Credit: image provided by artist Main St.Free admission to festival $5 for Beast Your Bike workshops and art-studio samplers. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday noon-10 p.m. And at random times, the Mesa Arts Center's resident dance, theater and ballet companies and symphonies will put on pop-up performances.ĭuring art-studio "samplers," festivalgoers can try out the center's art classes at dance, ceramics, glassmaking, puppetry and painting.Īnd at the center's Mesa Contemporary Arts, the 35th annual juried art show "Contemporary Crafts" runs through April 13.ĭetails: March 19-23.
![spark in the dark mesa arts festival spark in the dark mesa arts festival](https://azcitizensforthearts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/spark-Mesas-Festival-of-Creativity-1-681x1024.jpg)
Local and regional spoken-word, hip-hop, rock, jazz, Western and blues artists will perform live. Doug Boyd's "TubberKnockers" musical playground lets participants use unorthodox objects, such as pingpong paddles and wooden blocks, to make music. Karolina Sobecka's "It's You" installation explores the concept of spectatorship through the interactions of viewers and virtual people. "Art can play a different role in getting people to think about high-level complex research in a way that they wouldn't otherwise." "Art can be a way to look at things in different ways and spark conversation," said Jessica Rajko, co-director of urbanSTEW. On Friday and Saturday, dancers climb and move on the structure during performances that infuse modern and contemporary dance, digital musical and light projection. Festivalgoers can touch the structure to produce vibrations and sounds. UrbanSTEW, a local group integrating technology and art, will debut its interactive "Amyloid Project," a steel structure that mimics clumps of abnormally folded proteins known as amyloids, which have been linked to such ailments as Alzheimer' disease and diabetes. This year, the center introduces Spark! After Dark! a dance party on Friday and Saturday nights with interactive lighting and projection activities, circus performers and a DJ-VJ kiosk with opportunities to play with image and sound. Ornstein said the festival highlights a number of animal-themed activities, including Weaving the Wild, atmospheric and improv performances from dancers in frog, lizard, insect and bird costumes.įestivalgoers will have the opportunity to make glow-in-the-dark dragonflies, put their mark on a 20-foot-wide paint-by-the numbers jungle mural and help build a baby and mother giraffe out of Legos.
![spark in the dark mesa arts festival spark in the dark mesa arts festival](https://www.mesaartscenter.com/sysimg/scitech%20signature.png)
"To combine art with bikes, it just fit."īicycling enthusiasts can make their own animal-inspired designs for their bikes during the group's Beast Your Bike workshops. "I lived on my bike for years and years," he said. We want to represent the species."Īrtist Grant Schaubhut said working on the bikes has given him a new outlet for his creativity. "They look so realistic that horses and livestock are afraid of them," Rosen said. Jeremy Rosen, co-founder of Austin Bike Zoo, said engineers, artists, puppet makers, bicycle makers and costume designers collaborate on the detailed bikes. Austin Bike Zoo, which crafts intricately designed bicycles with such shapes as an 80-foot-long rattlesnake, a 10- to 18-foot-tall butterfly, an animated owl and bat, a firefly and a carousel, will make its Arizona debut at Spark! Festivalgoers can ride the bikes.