FAIRBANKS — Instructors at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival meet their students for the first time today, but the clock is already ticking. The whole process from beginning to performance takes place in two weeks — a period many students and instructors describe with a smile as “intense.”
Along the way, instructors and some of their students will give dozens of performances and mini-workshops open to all Fairbanks residents.
Now it its 31st year, the Fairbanks Arts Festival started as a way to teach local artists advanced techniques they would otherwise have to travel to learn.
“It was for people who are place-bound, who give back to the community by participating in the symphony or the Fairbanks Light Opera Theatre,” board president Pattty Kastelic said. “Not everyone has time or money to travel elsewhere.”
This year local residents remain the core participants, but about a quarter of the student population was attracted to the festival from elsewhere, she said. About 700 students have signed for classes so far this year.
The ratio is about the opposite for instructors. About three-fourths come from elsewhere.
On Sunday the students got a taste of this year’s talents. An introduction to the instructors included a poetry reading, a Dixieland piece performed by a brass quartet and a marimba solo. Jean Couch, a balance instructor from Palo Alto, Calif., did a five-minute posture exercise with the audience.
“Now you have to practice for the rest of your life,” she said after telling the audience that contemporary culture causes people to roll their hips too far forward when standing.
Kastelic warned students that the two weeks pass quickly and urged them to take opportunities to perform with their instructors as early as possible in the fast-moving festival. The opera students, for example, will need to begin learning a scene almost immediately after auditions.
“It could be in Italian, Greek or German,” opera coordinator Theresa Reed said. “They will have one week to memorize it. It’s pretty wild and woolly.”
For Fairbankans who are not registered for one of the two-week classes — it’s not too late to register — there are several other ways to take advantage of the festival.
Festival instructors and their students perform every day. More than 20 mini-workshops are also offered in subjects including crafts, yoga, cooing, dance and percussion.
At lunchtime, look for short, free performances in the “lunch bites” series held at UAF, downtown and elsewhere.
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