Staff writer Duncan Adams visited Center in the Square during “Family Day of Discovery,” and reported back (click this link to read,) and Rebecca Barnett took photos. Did you go yourself? What did you think?

Click the images below to go to the various galleries.

Center in the Square grand reopening

Harrison Museum of African American Culture

History Museum of Western Virginia

Science Museum of Western Virginia

Composer Philip Glass and his orchestra, the Philip Glass Ensemble, will kick off the Center for the Arts’ first season held in its newly-built home.

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will open its first full season in its new home with a performance by a legendary American composer, end with a multimedia theater performance for children by an Italian troupe, and in between will host professional dance companies, experimental plays, a popular NPR host, a bluegrass festival and even a Pops performance by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

Executive director Ruth Waalkes has said one of the goals of the new $100 million institution with its state-of-the-art 1,260-seat performance hall has been to complement, not duplicate, the programming that already exists in the Roanoke and New River valleys . Sure enough, the lineup of 21 acts sports little overlap with the Jefferson Center’s jazz offerings or the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre’s comedians and Broadway in Roanoke shows.

The acts are also chosen based on their potential to involve community members and create opportunities for educational programming, Waalkes said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Jeff Goldberg/Esto Photographics

From Sunday’s column:

A Virginia Tech architecture professor and her students created a technologically interactive art installation modelled on Japanese lanterns at the Smithsonian.

Part of a series called “The Lantern Field,” the installation consisted of swaths of paper folded into flowery shapes hung from bamboo poles. Motion sensors caused the lighting to change colors and electronic bamboo chime sounds to change rhythm as people moved through the space beneath the “lanterns.”

“The Lantern Field” was on display at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art during the National Cherry Blossom Festival in April. The seeds that grew to become the installation were planted before Aki Ishida joined the Tech faculty.

The project was inspired by the lantern festivals Ishida saw while growing up in Japan.

“Public parks would transform overnight into magical landscapes,” she said. Yet that magic was ephemeral. “These were paper lanterns that would go away after the days of the festival.”

“The Lantern Field,” too, was ephemeral. The installation went up April 5 and came down two days later after the gallery closed.

Ishida, 42, came to the United States when she was 11. By 2004 she was a New York architect teaching part-time at the Rhode Island School of Design. Japanese architecture has a tradition of using paper to modify lighting.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

(Here as promised in Sunday’s column is the video of the making of “The Lantern Field” at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.)

Click image for an enlarged view of the tour map.

Click here for a Google Map tour of Open Studios of Roanoke 2013.

Spring has come to Roanoke, which means it’s time for artists to open their studios once again to a weekend’s worth of visitors.

This year’s Open Studios of Roanoke tour features 26 artists at 13 stops, including new arrivals and familiar faces in new places.

Max Mitchell, 26, has opened Roanoke Art Works, abbreviated “R.A.W.,” at 26 Church Ave. S.W. His father, potter Steve Mitchell, has been a mainstay of the Open Studios tour for many years. Max Mitchell, a painter, has moved back to Roanoke after attending Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and living in Philadelphia for seven years.

“I never really liked being in the city,” he said. “I always liked being in the mountains.”

Steve Mitchell will have work on display in Roanoke Art Works this weekend, as will Roanoke painter Greg Osterhaus.

The father-son duo made waves in the regional art scene even before Max Mitchell moved back — in 2011, he won the grand prize at the Biennial Juried Exhibition at Roanoke College, and his father won second place.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Last year’s octopus float will be a giant sugar skull this year in the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival Parade, which starts at noon on Saturday, March 30 at Community High School in downtown Roanoke. Anyone is welcome to join in.

MIKE ALLEN | The Roanoke Times. Marginal Arts Festival founder Brian Counihan demonstrates one of the Easter Egg masks he’s making for the festival parade on March 30.

The Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival decided not to take chances this year.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be odd, bizarre, cutting-edge art experiences mixed into the festivities. It’s the weather they don’t want to gamble on.

For the past four years, the festival has tied its schedule to Mardi Gras, which meant it sometimes has taken place in the heart of winter. Founder Brian Counihan counts his blessings that the colorful and strange Marginal Arts Parade through downtown Roanoke has never been snowed out.

“We dodged a bullet every year,” said Roanoke artist Ralph Eaton, another of the festival’s organizers. So the artists running the festival decided to move it back a few weeks. (Eaton joked that he wished it could be held April Fool’s Day.)

The lineup this year includes an appearance from the Society for Creative Anachronism, famous for wearing medieval garb and battling with rattan swords, a contest to write a novel in 48 hours, experimental poetry, experimental art, experimental theater, and workshops that might help you understand what all these experiments are getting at. “We have a lot of professional artists involved,” Counihan said.

Of course there’s the parade at noon March 30 and the absurdist street carnival that immediately follows. This year, the festival ends with Vaudeville Night, a performance at the June M. McBroom Theater in Community High School at 302 Campbell Ave. S.E. Themes for the festival include Easter eggs, the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, and lucha libre, the sport of Mexican professional wrestling.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Festival organizers could use help decorating this giant clown shoe. Click the image to go to the Marginal Arts Festival page on Facebook.

 From my Inbox to you:

A sample from Simone Paterson’s “Diametric”

BLACKSBURG – “Diametric,” an exhibit by Virginia Tech School of Visual Arts  (http://www.sova.vt.edu/) faculty member Simone Paterson, will be on exhibit at the Perspective Gallery  (http://www.studentcenters.vt.edu/perspectivegallery/index.php) March 19 through May 11.

An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, March 22, from 5 to 7 p.m. Both the exhibit and the reception are free and open to the public.

The Perspective Gallery is located on the second floor in Squires Student Center (http://www.studentcenters.vt.edu/squires/index.php). Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

Paterson is an associate professor of new media art and chair of studio in the School of Visual Arts, College of Architecture and Urban Studies (http://www.caus.vt.edu/). “Diametric” is a collection of sculpture and digital media artwork created by Paterson. She wrote that the quality of light is dramatically different in the Appalachian Mountains than in the land of her birth.

“In Australia the light is intense, sharp and at times blinding. Here, the mountain light is filtered through a veil of moisture, a gentle caress of pastel hues as vistas open up before you on the trail.” Paterson is also concerned with the aesthetic possibilities of technology and her work addresses the impact of technology on our lived experience. Read more »

UPDATE 3/21: Organizer Amanda Agricola shared this schedule with me:

The majority of live performances will take place from 5:00-8:30.

5-10 Cherisse Gray, “White Choice”
6-6:30 HeJin Jang, “Migrant-self the Speed of a Door”
7- 8:00 Tif Robinette “Love me Tender”
7- 8:00 Mr. Thursday, “Strutt Stream”
7- 8:00 Olchar Lindsann, “untitled”
8- 8:30 Amanda Agricola, “Come Inside”

Susan Jamison and Matt Ames have visual works up

Sarah Ingel, Erica Buechman, and Annie Waldrop have video performances playing for the duration of the show.

From Sunday’s column:

A sketch for “Love Me Tender” by Tif Robinette

Roanoke artist Amanda Agricola has organized “Cycles~,”a performance art and video exhibition that focuses on “cyclical occurrences in femininity.”

“I had a couple of women come to me with ideas for performances and I had also been thinking about planning an event in conjunction with Women’s History Month, so I decided that it would be a good occasion to have a performance exhibition,” she wrote in a Facebook message.

Participating artists include Matt Ames, Erica Buechner, Warren Fry, Cherisse Gray, Sarah Ingel, HeJin Jan, Susan Jamison, Olchar Lindsann, Tif Robinette and Annie Waldrop, with music by Mateo Marquez Marquez. Admission is free. Performances contain adult subject matter.

Agricola and Marquez previously organized “Exclamations!” a cutting-edge series of exhibitions that debuted at the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival last year and received a Perry F. Kendig Award from the now-defunct Arts Council of the Blue Ridge.

“Cycles~” takes place 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday in the former Pamela Jean Gallery at 115 Salem Ave S.E. in Roanoke. For more information, visit http://c-y-c-l-e-s.net/ or the “Cycles~” event page on Facebook.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

From Sunday’s column:

The still-under-construction Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech continues its 2012-13 season with “Lucid Possession.”

A multimedia theater production by New York digital artist and experimental theater pioneer Toni Dove, “Lucid Possession” combines live action and robotics with video projections.

Musicians, a video DJ and lighted costumes all figure in the mix. Center executive director Ruth Waalkes describes the show as a “contemporary ghost story about a young woman whose head becomes clogged with tweets and video streams, and the mysterious journey she takes with her avatar,” and suggested it will come across as a cross between the films “The Sixth Sense” and “The Matrix.” The show provides a preview, as “Lucid Possession” officially opens in Brooklyn, N.Y., in April.

The show is co-presented with Tech’s Department of Theatre and School of Performing Arts and Cinema. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. March 17 in Theatre 101 on College Avenue in Blacksburg. Admission is $20, senior citizens and faculty and staff $16, students and children $10.

Dove will also give a free ArtsFusion talk at 5 p.m. March 18 in Theatre 101, presented by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.

For more information, call 231-5615 or visit www.studentcenters.vt.edu/tickets/events.php.

From my Inbox to you:

W&L Repertory Dance Company Concert

Six short years ago the Washington & Lee dance program, led by Artistic Director Jenefer Davies, began with a few classes for a small group of dedicated students. Over the years, the growth in enrollment has led to a corresponding increase in both course offerings and outreach activities, as well as the number of opportunities provided for students to work and perform with guest artists. The program now boasts a specific dance minor, a 45-member dance company, prestigious awards from the American College Dance Festival, a second full-length concert each season, and a brand new, state-of-the-art studio, which opened just this year at 109 S. Jefferson Street.

In terms of both technique and artistry, the quality of the work featured in this season’s W&L Repertory Dance Company Concert represents a high point in the continuing evolution of the program. The company’s guest artists hail from award-winning, nationally recognized and prestigious dance companies, and the students are given the occasion to spend multiple days with each of them—taking master classes, learning their choreography, and getting to know them and their way of life. This opportunity to work directly with performing professionals at the top of their field is rare, and one that the company treasures. The dancers have proven that they are up to the challenge of recreating these choreographers’ amazing works with nuance, respect and technical proficiency.

The company has been particularly honored to work with Nicole Wolcott, Associate Director of the Internationally respected Keigwin + Co. Her work, Straight Duet, set to an Italian aria by Vivaldi, is a sad and tender cameo of a man and woman struggling through a drastic period in their relationship. Additionally, award-winning choreographer and guest dancer with nationally acclaimed Trey McIntyre Project, Lauren Edson, spent a week at W&L setting Foreground, an energetic and engrossing piece that won the Great Works Choreography Prize for 2012. Patrons of the concert will witness a great diversity of works, including a gravity-defying aerial work as three dancers fly through the air on white silks, two modern works with integrated video (one in which Easter eggs fall from the ceiling), and a fun, brain-tweaking duet, Inspired by Leo.  Performed on a wall, this duet is simultaneously videoed and projected sideways onto a large screen so that it becomes increasingly difficult to discern up from down. This concert is a grand mixture, highlighting the diversity of dance and celebrates its sincerity, beauty and fun. Read more »