Arts First: A Schorr Thing

The brightly colored blue, green, red and purple guides for the Arts First festival from May 3 to May 6 have been spotted across campus in places like the Fogg Art Museum, the Loeb Drama Theater and the Harvard Box Office throughout the month of April. The woman behind these informative, event-filled guides is Ingrid Schorr, assistant project manager for Arts First who also produces the festival’s Performance Fair, recruits student performers and behind-the-scenes volunteers and directs campus publicity. Having graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1999 with a masters in Arts in Education, this weekend will be Schorr’s second experience in managing Arts First. Although she is relatively new to the festival that Master of the Arts at Harvard John Lithgow ’67 and President Neil Rudenstine first launched in 1993, Schorr has had a great deal of experience in the arts. She has directed various spectacles around Boston, everything from feminist agitprop to theatrical fashion shows and a live philosophy-and-culture game show. With her background in writing, editing, theater and education Schorr says that she “enjoy[s] putting on shows that don’t take themselves too seriously but challenge people to think.”

Inside the cover of the multi-colored festival guide is an enthusiastic greeting from the Arts First Planning Group: “Welcome to Arts First 2001! The purpose of Arts First is to celebrate undergraduates and faculty in the arts and galvanize the arts community. What does Arts First mean to you?” Rudenstine responds that “this celebration of student and faculty creativity and talent has been one of the greatest pleasures of my tenure as President” and his co-instigator Lithgow says that “you are going to love the talent, energy and optimism of this festival.” But what does Arts First really mean?

"For many people outside the Harvard campus," says Schorr, “it’s an opportunity to see Harvard as more than an academic or elitist behemoth. They see that goofy parade coming down Mass Avenue and follow it to the picnic. Then they spend the rest of the afternoon taking in all kinds of music, dance, drama and film in some remarkably diverse settings.” Arts First thus has the ability to not only involve campus students and faculty but also to include the Cambridge and Boston community.

College students also benefit greatly from this wide participation because artists, performers and producers alike have the opportunity to take their work public to a setting that brings them an immense and varied audience. Schorr says, “You get a bigger, more diverse audience. It’s much more than just your friends.” Perhaps the breadth and size of the Arts First audience is a direct consequence of the long planning period that takes place months before the actual festival. Schorr and her team of volunteers and Arts First 2001 Planning Group members have been coordinating the events of the weekend and planning for publicity since January. Schorr is specifically responsible for the Performance Fair which will take place on Saturday, May 5 from 1 to 5 p.m. and feature over 90 free student performances at a wide variety of locations across campus. Since no auditions are held for performers in the fair, Schorr is responsible for incoporating and publicizing all the groups that apply. The festival structure of the Performance Fair is a challenge that Schorr greatly enjoys. With the type of short performances that festivals demand, groups and individual artists must learn to share the venue with several other performers if the production is to be run smoothly.

Preparing the publicity for the festival also mounts to a large amount of work, but for Schorr, it is work that becomes worthwhile when she sees the dedication that students involved in the festival display. “There’s a lot of reproduction work and it comes at a time when students are at their busiest and most overextended. But as Hannah Arendt wrote, the best way to anchor yourself in a chaotic world is to make and keep a promise. Even if it’s showing up on time for a rehearsal, these students keep a promise.”

Schorr’s wonderful experience with arts at Harvard extend past just her work with student participants. “I think the arts are very much alive at Harvard! Just as one example, I have the pleasure of walking through the Carpenter Center every day on my way to work and home and in that one spot—designed by a wonderfully eccentric architect who wanted passerby to see the insides of the place—I can take in so much. There’s always an exhibition, great film posters and up above, a glimpse into the studios.” Although she does find a lack of participation among the general student body in the arts, she is surprised and excited by the amount of people who volunteer for the festival.

Schorr says, “Arts First is part of the reason that student participation in the arts has increased so remarkably over the past 10 or so years” but believes greatly that Harvard provides many other outlets for its community to become involved in the arts. In addition to the recognized art organizations, students can also become involved in a variety of work with children in the arts. Programs such as Hand, CityStep and Harmony all involve Harvard students in programs that not only continue their participation in the arts but also brings art into the greater community. The Office for the Arts also offers classes in ceramics, dance,and drawing as well as subsidies for music lessons. The Learning through Performers program brings students in direct contact with a variety of “real-world” artist outside the campus.

Although Arts First is a festival that seeks to promote and showcase art in a concentrated effort, art for Schorr is still about the everyday. “I’d say that student life itself is a framework for art-making. The students occupying Mass Hall are making art, in a way. Just look at those tents and banners. They’ve transformed the Yard. They’ve brought singers and poets. My tax preparer was there last week reading poetry. I hope they’ll do something during Arts First that coexists and doesn’t compete with the festival.”