Jun 1, 2011
Northern Spark this Weekend!
Join me and a million-and-one (so it seems) other artists this weekend for a huge and new festival that will span Minneapolis and St. Paul! It’s Northern Spark! northernspark.org
I’ll let Northern Spark describe itself below, but I’ll be there as part of the Art Swap Shanty, which is part of the Art Shanty Projects‘ presence at NS! In our shanty village near Black Dog Cafe, you can Swap Art, make bicycle-powered spin art, sing a little karaoke, take a twirl in the Dance Shanty, pose for a pic in the Snapshot Shanty and make tiny ice houses on a piece of ice shaped like Medicine Lake–it is going to be AWESOME!
Be sure to check out the Northern Spark website, where you’ll read about TONS of fun, inventive, and adventurous projects. There’s a fun Sleep Contest going on at the walker (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/books/sleepcontest.html), puppet shows, light shows, live composition, and more!
See you Saturday (or in the wee early hours of Sunday!)
–julie
FROM THE NS WEBSITE: Northern Spark: a nuit blanche
Northern Spark is a new MN Festival modeled on a nuit blanche or “white night” festival—a dusk to dawn participatory art event along the Mississippi and surrounding areas. It will take place the evening of June 4 (sunset 8:55 pm) till the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 am).
Northern Spark will include a diversity of art forms and projects including multi-story projections, audio environments with vistas, floating works on barges, houseboats and paddleboats, headphone concerts, and the use of everything from bioluminescent algae and sewer pipes for organs to more traditional media such as banjos and puppets.
There is magic in the night, when the familiar, like the city skyline, becomes majestic, and a starry sky can transport the imagination. One’s senses are heightened, attuned to the slightest noise or even the smell of the nearby river in a way that seems not so common in daylight. One’s regular bus ride or walking over the threshold of a building visited hundreds of times before becomes exotic and otherworldly at 3 am.
It is in this context that more than 200 artists are presenting 100 installations and performances for Northern Spark from the top of the Foshay Tower to boat rides along the Mississippi to light sculptures and projections to performances galore, including car horn and brass band fanfares, color guards, river dancing, sewer pipe organs, lullabies, and storytelling. Perusing this site will introduce you to the rich variety of offerings that will bloom for one night only. It is not our goal to take over the night like some giant big top tent, but to join it. We meet the city halfway. As you walk or ride a bike or take the bus from one venue to another, see and appreciate your surroundings with new eyes and ears. Celebrate one of the great rivers of the world through two magnificent cities and enjoy the next artistic intervention you come across. It’s an adventure. You make your own journey.
