SETTING THE STAGE
Festival of the Arts fills three stages with hundreds of entertainers
There’s a corner of Chase Kerby’s Arts Council office covered in dozens of sticky notes.
Each one contains the names of songwriters, dancers, rappers and every variety of performance art imaginable. Starting Tuesday, roughly 150 of the acts on these Postits will be performing on the three stages at the Festival of the Arts in Bicentennial Park in downtown Oklahoma City.
It’s Kerby’s first year helping the Arts Council in an official capacity. He’s normally responsible for maintaining the daily lunchtime Art Moves concert series. Leading up to today, he’s been aided by an army of volunteers and organizers to help wrangle talent for the 52nd rendition of the Festival of the Arts.
“It’s definitely been a really awesome experience seeing how an office of 14 people somehow organizes the fourth-largest arts festival in
the country,” Kerby told The Oklahoman. “This couldn’t happen without so many amazing volunteers.”
The performance arts side of the highly collaborative effort starts breathing well before lunch and runs until after dark. Every hour from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. means a new entertainer. It’s no small task coordinating so many choirs, orchestras, ballet dancers and more.
“If it wasn’t for these two helping me, I might be dead,” he joked.
Festival performing arts committee cochairs Cassidy Jackson and Colby Wedel sat across from Kerby. They do everything from scheduling, judging talent and sorting hundreds of performer submissions. Jackson said it’s a lot of work, but the stages are an essential narrative to the Festival of the Arts experience.
You can’t miss them, they surround the north, east and south side of the Civic Center.
“They tell a story of where you started whether you’re grabbing food or checking out art,” Jackson said. “It’s open-ended. You can take a seat to watch a cool dance or sing along with a band. I think it’s neat to have everything fit together and to see our city come together to have a good time.”
Art is eclectic in nature, Kerby added.
“It’s great being a part of an organization both championing and really celebrating that,” he said. “It’s a fun challenge to allocate how this’ll come together. It’s almost like staring at a puzzle for months on end and now you have one piece left.
“It’s really overwhelming because there’s so much to be done, but we take it one step at a time.”
You’d be surprised at how many Celtic dance groups and bands want to be involved, Wedel said.
“We’re also bringing back a lot of favorites like the Lynda Tarpley Tappers, The Wise Guys and Shortt Dogg,” she said. “They’ve been coming back for years, and we’re also inviting several school groups to perform.”
Familiarity attracts patrons back to the celebration but inviting fresh faces to perform is another goal for the festival’s performing arts committee.
“It’s nice to see younger faces and to involve people at a young age,” Jackson said. “I love seeing kids return when they’re older and having grown a following of friends and family.”
You can catch Festival’s Got Talent on Saturday from 3:30-5 p.m. to see youth performers ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade compete for Festival of the Arts glory.
It’s refreshing to see so many people get involved with the Festival of the Arts, Kerby said.
“I think we’re all excited to be down at Bicentennial Park to celebrate performance art and culture,” he said. “It’s a great familyfriendly environment. We’re primed and ready for this rocket ship to blast off.”