Technically, if ArtSwirl began on August 2nd, the first event would have been the Young People’s Theater Workshop presentation of American PI. The performances began at 5:30 pm, an hour and a half before the “A Look at Now” gallery reception.
Thursday’s performances were the second of three, with the final performance taking place at Friday, 10 am, at the Northfield Arts Guild Theater, 411 W. Third Street. There’s still one more opportunity to catch these young artists in the act.
Here they are, greeting the audience after Thursday’s performance. Many of the names were strangely familiar: Balfany, Bratland, Buckheit, Carlson, DeMann, Lane, Lawler, Ousley, Roecklein, Tiano. Oh my gosh, these are the “alpha kids” that Katherine Kerstin warned me about!
The only mood-altering material present Thursday evening was the satire. It caused the audience to laugh, perhaps suspiciously so.
ArtSwirl. A chance to see the real Northfield, it’s young and emerging artists, it’s self-styled “suburban house-mothers” (who exhibit bohemian behavior, behind the gallery doors), and it’s path-making seniors, who created the Northfield Arts Guild back in 1959. Northfield. A town finally accurately described by the Star Tribune:
“Arts about to envelop Northfield, even more than they usually do”.
Ross, somehow you left Currier off your list of young folks involved in YPTW.
This comment should probably go in one of the other threads on locallygrown about the quality of life here in Northfield, but Young People’s Theater Workshop is one of Northfield’s great summer kids’ activities (and one which has been going on much longer than ArtSwirl). Not only does the program have fabulous staff who manage to harness all that kid energy and creativity into imagining, writing, rehearsing and performing a play (in a little less than 3 weeks), but kids come back to do it year after year.
As I watched the Wednesday show, I watched kids who had been with my daughter in daycare and are now in high school, kids who I watched in their first YPT plays as 4th graders now doing much more sophisticated stuff as 9th graders, and seeing how something like YPT forges a social network across town, across schools, and across age groups.
I’m looking forward to seeing some of these same young actors appearing in other NAG productions (during ArtSwirl and beyond), meeting their parents again in other art-related volunteer settings, and enjoying all the community building connections a program like this fosters.
But first I’ll have to check out some of the other ArtSwirl events.
Betsey:
You said:
“As I watched the Wednesday show, I watched kids who had been with my daughter in daycare and are now in high school, kids who I watched in their first YPT plays as 4th graders now doing much more sophisticated stuff as 9th graders, and seeing how something like YPT forges a social network across town, across schools, and across age groups.
I say:
“Right On, Sister!”