The Arts Festivals at Harvard-Each Has Its Excuse for Being

In the next month, art exhibitions will begin to dot the walls of Harvard's common rooms and hallways. Dozens of concerts, ranging from German choral music to Soviet jazz, and about 15 films--student produced, "experimentals," and artistic treasures that even the Brattle doesn't show--will be presented. And an array of dinners, discussions, and debates has been scheduled to intensify Harvard's artistic consciousness. In short, the College is about to be assailed by five separate arts festivals.

The festivals, sponsored by Adams, Dunster, Leverett, and Quincy Houses and the Yard, conform to no set pattern.

They vary in size. Dunster's Festival for the Visual Arts is by and primarily for Dunstermen; the widely-publicized Quincy Arts Festival, a "veritable behemoth" (as it says in the program) offers the University a broad selection of the performing arts.

They vary in scope. The Freshman Festival represents the first attempt to provide the Yardlings their own arena of artistic expression. The Leverett House Arts Festival has opened its competition to the College, and in the area of experimental films, to the entire University.

They vary in purpose. Quincy will concentrate on the performing arts, Leverett and Dunster on the visual arts, and Adams will present a panorama of talks, concerts, films, and exhibitions attempting to present a smattering of Russian culture.

Perhaps the best-known of these is the Leverett House Arts Festival, being held this year May 8-15. Adapting itself to serve the College rather than just the House, it provides a forum for a College-wide undergraduate competition in four areas--painting, photopraphy, three-dimensional works, and fiction.

Leverett has numerous advantages for making the adaptation. Because the House has two libraries, the Old Library can be used in conjunction with the Junior Common Room as an art gallery. Students are drawn to Leverett's competition from all over the College by the cash awards, in all areas, of $50 for first prize, $25 for second, and $15 for third. Finally, the House can graphically symbolize--and advertise--the Arts Festival with its "Space Frame," a geometric structure in the Towers' Courtyard made of sticks and strings and reminiscent of a World's Fair pavillion.

This year, Leverett's festival has expanded by opening a new field of competition, the experimental film. The films may be entered by either undergraduates or graduates and first prize will consist of a $100 award.

The Leverett festival is big, and although its budget has been reduced this year, it appears to be growing bigger. It stands unique among the festivals in performing the College-wide function of displaying and judging art.

The dominance of Leverett does not discourage other festivals. In fact, it may encourage the creation of smaller, more intimate programs. Dunster, for example, has begun its first arts festival this year which will last through the 30th of April. It is purposely limited. There are perhaps 60 pictures, in the catagories of black and white, color, photography, oils, and miscellaneous.

Local Talent

Bill Buchholz '67, arts festival chairman, has no ambitions for making the Dunster festival monumental; he would like to have the festival perpetuated, but he wants to keep it small. "The Dunster festival provides the opportunity for the review of Dunster talent, not University talent," Buchholz says, and so presents the rationale for all small House festivals.

The Freshman Festival was similarly created to provide a chance for freshmen to display art that otherwise would not get shown. It opened yesterday and will continue through April 28th.

The competition and display of student art is only one aim of arts festivals at Harvard. There is also an emphasis on performance and enter- tainment--readings, concerts, drama and films. Leverett will feature regular readings of student writings, including one original play. Dunster is putting on its arts festival in conjunction with its production of The Frogs, playing this weekend and next.

Quincy and Adams are de-emphasizing student work, and featuring other artistic attractions as the major focus of their festivals. This raises special problems: "Perhaps the Harvard community doesn't need an arts festival of the performing arts," contends Tom MacKenzie '66, co-chairman of the Quincy House Arts Festival. "There are so many activities in the performing arts at Harvard already that the House festival in this area must compete with other activities going on all year."

Meeting Competition

To meet this competition, the Quincy festival has undertaken one of the most thoroughly executed advertising campaigns in the House's history. Over 700 posters have been put up "wherever possible" around Harvard, at other colleges in the area, and in the art galleries and major museums of Boston. Ads have appeared in most of the Boston dailies and college newspapers, and spot announcements have been aired on local radio stations for the past week. In addition, nearly every mailbox at Harvard has been stuffed with one of a variety of mimeographed leaflets.

Such a sales pitch is not typical of most cultural activities at Harvard, and it exemplifies one of the advantages of a performing arts festival. By planning a series of events within an eleven-day period extending through April 30, the Quincy festival organizers have already established a momentum that carries over from one event to another. The total advertising for the festival has been far more effective than publicity for a single event ever could be.

But the festival of the performing arts is more than a series of single events. There are characteristics of a "festival event" that distinguish it from most other concerts, recitals, and film showings. The House festival event is convenient and informal. It often makes available a kind of programming that is not possible when only a single event is being presented.

At a special House dinner inaugurating the Quincy Arts Festival, William Alfred read from his play "Hogan's Goat." But before he did, he warned, "Please be comfortable, shuffle around, move your chairs, and rattle your glasses. I won't be comfortable unless you are comfortable." That tone characterized the entire evening. With his quips, explanations, and his three different degrees of Irish brogue, the evening proved neither a performance of the play, nor a reading, but something in between.

The same unique informal spirit pervaded the folk concert Wednesday night in Quincy. Although the program was being taped for WHRB rebroacast, students and their dates sat in chairs and on tables around the crowded dining hall.

Another advantage of the festival is that it enhances programming that might otherwise be overlooked in the notice columns and underattended in the House common rooms. The festival of the performing arts can focus attention on a series of unusual performances which would appear less attractive if isolated.

For example, the Adams House Arts Festival will illustrate its theme May 14-20 with samples of Russian culture drawn from throughout the Harvard community. Yet few at Harvard have been aware of them. Much of the Kilgour Collection of rare copies and first editions in Russian literature and music, now in Houghton Library, will be on display in6Next time you're walking beneath a chandeller in Dunster's Junior Common Room, look up. You'll see some of Dunster's arts festival up there too. The Dunster festival emphasizes the visual arts.