Brian Counihan, director of the Marginal Arts Festival and a professor of humanities at Community High School, said.. the concept of marginal or fringe festivals goes back to the United Kingdom after World War II. They were geared more towards theater, but Roanoke’s Marginal Arts Festival provides an outline for a potpourri of events that will take place from March 24-29.
The 7th Marginal Arts Festival kicks off with “Lycee” workshops, lectures and classes held at Community High School and the Metropolitan Church of the Blue Ridge (March 24-27). There’s an official kickoff for the festival on Thursday, March 27 with a street party on Market Street, between Fork in the Market and the former Gallery 108 space. An animator now featured at the Taubman Museum, Motomichi Nakamura, will be on hand for a live digital performance that will be projected on an outside wall.
Other events include a concert by the Virginia Tech Linux Laptop Orchestra, a PechaKucha night, and appearances from artists traveling to Roanoke from as far away as Maine, Ohio and Cornwall, England.
Ride Solutions and Valley Metro are partnering for the first “Art By Bus” program, wherein several public buses will feature art in the place of ad signage. “It’s another wonderful partnership that we have,” said Counihan. Art By Bus is designed in part to encourage people who may even have cars to leave them behind for a bit, to take a bus ride where they can also view works of art. “You’ll see Roanoke in a different way – it’s about art connecting people.”
Keep your eye out for 4-foot tall rubber chicken statues. The rubber chicken over the years has evolved into the mascot for the Marginal Arts Festival program, which began in part as a reply to Roanoke City’s attempt to establish an “official” arts festival in the fall. Funded by the city, it was all over the map, featured many paid events and never really got off the ground. The Marginal Arts Festival on the other hand is largely free, offering obscure and emerging artists the opportunity to seize the spotlight.
There’s a participatory feel to the Marginal Arts Festival – especially during the all-comers parade on Saturday, March 29 that begins at Community High School at 11:45 am, marching in to downtown before looping back. The only advisory there is to “dress absurdly.” Counihan calls it a “great way to express yourself…even if it might not make sense.” The Norman Fishing Tackle Choir band will accompany marchers.
The Lycee workshops (Counihan thought the French word gave them some more heft) cover everything from Hip-Hop dance to fiction writing, from how to create a spiritual life to something called “Trash Couture.” Many of the teachers at Community High School are also artists and some of the artists coming to town for Marginal Arts are would-be teachers, so Counihan said employing them for the Lycee workshops just made a lot of sense.
“They have a lot to offer. They teach about what they know best.” All are welcome. “Playing with the vast of range of what’s out there,” is a goal of Lycee said Counihan. Roanoke College galleries curator Talia Logan will show off her M.A.P. project, where she is sending postcards off to artists all over the country and the world, asking them to create something on the postcard and send it back. It will become a curated show at Roanoke College this fall. “That way we’ll have a world connection through visual art, in a very…connected sort of way,” noted Counihan.
Many students at Community High get involved but Counihan is quick to point out that “it’s not a high school art show. We do have students participate at sort of a professional level.” Pen and ink drawings and avant-garde poetry writing are among the contributions CHS students will make towards this year’s Marginal Arts Festival. “It’s a lot of fun,” promises Counihan.
(See facebook.com/MarginalArtsRoanoke for more details and a schedule of events.)
By Gene Marrano
