Arts First Through the Years

Arts First Associate Project Manager Ingrid Schorr wants to know who “doesn’t need a celebration.”

“I think that’s the key word,” she says. “[Arts First is] not a competition, it’s not juried, there are no auditions. I think it comes from people who really want to show their work and have the responsibility of taking their art public.”

Arts First has always tried to be an inclusive, democratic celebration. In 1992, John Lithgow ’67, inspired by the emphasis on the arts at former University President Neil L. Rudenstine’s inauguration in 1991, suggested that the University sponsor a formal event to celebrate the arts.

Lithgow, who was then on the Board of Overseers, met with Rudenstine and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles and eventually arrived at the idea of a more organic, weekend-long celebration of student art at Harvard.

In May 1993, the first Arts First took place, featuring 40 performances. The year coincided with significant anniversaries of many arts organizations on campus: the Office for the Arts’ (OFA) 20th, the Carpenter Center’s 30th, the Glee Club’s 135th and Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra’s 185th.

Lithgow already thought Arts First could become an annual event, though he told The Crimson that “We only have dreams and fantasies for next year.”

Then, the administration approved Arts First on a year-to-year basis. The OFA’s Arts Spectrum newsletter in November 1994 says: “Green Light on Arts First. President Rudenstine has given the go-ahead for Arts First ’95!”

This enthusiasm for the project was typical of the community’s early reactions.

“We met with so much enthusiasm everywhere we went that one of our main challenges was limiting the scope,” Lithgow says.

Arts First originally had a different form, beginning Friday instead of Thursday and coinciding with the Undergraduate Council’s Yardfest, the first incarnation of Springfest. But that scheduling damaged both Springfest and Arts First, according to organizers; although they were distinct events with disparate purposes, they competed with each other in engaging the Harvard community.

Over time, though, Arts First has evolved into a major, all-encompassing campus event.

“It was always part of my dream for Arts First that it become an annual tradition, a springtime tradition at Harvard, and become an institution. People anticipate it, it becomes a very familiar household word, and Arts First becomes the signature for a really important Harvard event,” Lithgow says.

Now, the festival’s reach has expanded into Cambridge.

“Now it’s like ‘It’s Arts First again!’” Schorr says. “Outside the community, I think we get more coverage, and it’s become a huge family. If you go to Lowell Hall for the dance festival, there are dozens of strollers parked outside, and the little girls inside with their wands and their little fairy outfits, beside themselves.”

The traditional Arts First parade was designed in the first year to bring Cantabrigians into the festival.

“It takes almost as much effort as the whole rest of the festival,” she says, “but it really pulls people in and through the gates to the Yard in a way that just doesn’t happen at any other time of the year.”

Besides the traditional, Arts First has had its share of edgier, experimental works. In 1997, conflict arose over the exclusion of an act called “Dancing Deviant” from the program. The show, a multi-media solo performance containing nudity and sexually explicit material in an exploration of sexuality, included a scene of self-penetration with a vibrator and was informally referred to as “a back-flip on top of a dildo,” according to The Crimson.

The application of the show’s writer-performer—a member of the Arts First planning board—for a Council on the Arts grant was declined on the grounds that it did not clearly fit its sponsorship guidelines of “artistic innovation” and wide appeal among the student body. In a postscript to the form rejection letter, then-OFA Director Myra Mayman wrote, “Given the broad range of audience and ages that Arts First attracts, and the casual nature of attendance, the Council thinks that Arts First isn’t an appropriate forum for the play.”

The mix of performances does seem to have evolved somewhat over time, and Schorr says she sees “glimmers of innovation” this year from student participants. “They’re thinking differently about performance, audience, how to put something together,” she says. “There are still thirteen a capella groups and all the orchestras, but there’s something new going on.”

All of these performances—both annual and innovative—now amount to more than 200 total events, a 500 percent increase from the first year. More than 2,000 students are involved on the performance and production side, and thousands more come from Harvard Square and elsewhere to watch.

“I feel that this is just as important an event for Harvard audiences as for Harvard artists,” Lithgow says. “It should be an event where everybody at Harvard stops a moment and contemplates the incredible creative energy of this place. We’re not asking everybody to perform; we want at least half of them to come and watch!”

Although Arts First seems to be here to stay, its shape may shift with time.

“I think things are going to change because we have a new director of the OFA,” Schorr said. “We now have the outdoor stage in Harvard Yard, the site for the performance fair on Saturday, and [OFA Director Jack Megan] has been trying to push for public art in the Yard.”

—Staff writer Alexandra B. Moss can be reached at abmoss@fas.harvard.edu.