Arts First in Harvard Square

ARTS FIRST, Harvard’s annual celebration of student and faculty creativity, welcomes the community to events around the campus on Thursday, May 1, through Sunday, May 4, 2008.
Whether you fancy medieval chansons or a cappella, photography or film, ballet or break-dance, existential drama or comedy, ARTS FIRST will delight you with more than 200 music, theater, dance, film, and visual arts events (most free of charge and open to the public). The festival is sponsored by Harvard University’s Board of Overseers and produced with guidance by the Office for the Arts at Harvard.

2008 ARTS FIRST Festival highlights include:

· Performance Fair/Dance Festival with over 100 free events in four hours at 12 sites
· Barbeque picnic with music by the Harvard Sunday Jazz Ensemble
· Brahms’ Requiem performed by the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus.
· Productions indoors and out including Sweeney Todd, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Twelfth Night.
· The Harvard University Powwow, a celebration of Native American song and dance
· Outdoor ceramics wheel demonstration
· Outdoor art installations
· Outdoor Stage and Bandfest at Holyoke Center in the heart of Harvard Square
· The ARTS FIRST Art Walk, highlighting exhibitions around the campus

Office for the Arts director Jack Megan notes, “ARTS FIRST celebrates student creation in all artistic forms. Around half of Harvard’s 6,600 students participate in the festival, offering hundreds of opportunities to connect with public art, dance, drama, film, paint, sculpture, and more. If you can imagine and create it, it’s here.”

For more information on ARTS FIRST 2008, please contact the Office for the Arts at Harvard at 617.495.8676, or visit www.fas.harvard.edu/arts <http://www.fas.harvard.edu/arts> to confirm event schedules.