Long Live Summer Arts Festivals
May 14, 2009
PeepDance at Central Park SummerStage 2008, photo by Evan Namerow
In case you missed it, last week The New York Times published listings for summer festivals in dance, theater, classical music, and pop. For those inclined to escape the city this summer to get their dance fix, there’s the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts, the Bates Dance Festival in Maine (a teaching festival with many performances and lecture-demonstrations), and the Vail International Dance Festival, directed by former New York City Ballet principal Damian Woetzel. Here in New York, there’s the site-specific Sitelines Series, the popular Central Park SummerStage (where I had a great time last summer watching and photographing Tami Dance Company in PeepDance), and the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors series, along with several others.
Among the many theater festivals, perhaps the best-named and most intriguing is The Antidepressant Festival, produced by the same folks at The Brick Theater who brought us the $ellout Festival and the Pretentious Festival. According to the Times, the Antidepressant Festival, which will include nineteen productions, is “meant as a diversion at a time of plummeting stocks and rising unemployment.” Fortunately, all performances are under $15. That should keep festival-goers happy.
