Newtown Arts Festival In Festive Mode Of Preparation

With the summer days moving quickly, the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC) is finalizing its special lineup of entertainment, art workshops, and artist booths for the Newtown Arts Festival, September 15–16. The list of participants includes many talented people from Newtown, in addition to participants coming from throughout the United States.

“The festival will offer a host of interesting and informative hands-on demonstrations and talks for children and adults,” says Jen Rogers, NCAC commissioner and festival workshop chair.

Presentations will include Patricia Campbell’s “Oh, How We Danced! A Timeline of Traditional Social Dance, 17th–21st Centuries,” which will also include an opportunity for festivalgoers to learn dances from the late 17th Century to today’s square dance. 

Festival poster winner Tracy Van Buskirk will be demonstrating how easy it is to create a beautiful block print with a collection of objects and the artist’s imagination. Glen Rivers will feature modern art techniques with a presentation on how mixed media — such as photography, computer-aided processing, and mixed-media painting — can converge to create techno-age art.

Live performances during the festival are just as eclectic. NCAC Commissioner Robert Rabinowitz, who heads up these special festival events, has jam-packed the two days’ entertainment from classical music to ska. Performances will include a special edition of Flagpole Radio Café, which delights audiences with music and comedy as a radio variety show. 

Smokebomb Mondays, a horn-driven ska ensemble of Newtown young adults, will entertain with reggae, jazz, blues, and punk. On the other end of the spectrum, Fat Chance, self-described as “mainly six geezers, well five geezers and one’s son…” who jam together and play at many area events, will present blues and rock and everything in between. The artists booths signed up thus far consist of arts and crafts from fine art to whirligigs.

Newtown Arts Festival will take place from 9 am to 6 pm, rain or shine, at Fairfield Hills.

Admission is $5, which children under 12 free. Discount tickets — two days for one — and special event items, such as limited-edition posters, can be found at www.newtownartsfestival.com.