Gloucester New Arts Festival seeks to put Cape Ann “On the Map”

(Gloucester, Massachusetts). April 20, 2006

The Gloucester New Arts Festival (GNAF) in partnership with the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (seARTS) and the Cape Ann YMCA (CAY) is returning to stage an expanded program here on Cape Ann. Choreographer and Director Sarah Slifer will open the program the weekend of April 29th at the YMCA. The festival’s main events are scheduled for August 11-13 and will conclude in late October. GNAF received funding from seARTS and the Massachusetts Cultural Council John and Abigail Adams Grant, and through the seARTS partnership GNAF has ensured that the competition for a place in the program was open to all local artists and that the performances receive maximum publicity throughout the region. The 2006 GNAF has received applications from all over the world.

According to Ms. Slifer, New Arts connotes innovative, idea-driven work that pushes creative edges and crosses genre boundaries. She looks for work that delights artists and the public alike through its ability to provide new ways of experiencing art, and new ways of seeing, finding and expressing art. Though festivals like GNAF have been primarily urban phenomena, Slifer has intentionally brought hers out of a large city while keeping it artist-run and produced. GNAF follows in the tradition of such examples as The Transmodern Festival in Baltimore, MD, The Festival of the Sacred and Profane in Peaks, Island Maine, and the countless "fringe festivals" around the world assembled to introduce experimental art.

Gloucester as a specific location for GNAF is an important part of Slifer’s equation, but though it informs the work of the artists, becomes the setting, and sometimes subject of the work, the work itself is not necessarily about Gloucester. Exposing Cape Ann to a wide range of artistic events and experiences is one of the underlying goals of seARTS. The back drop for GNAF is the rich art history of Cape Ann and the many iconoclasts who went there to work. Like them, the Gloucester New Arts Festival and Performance Series seeks to integrate high-quality, innovative, original artworks into the community and public space. It presents work that questions in a rigorous way what it means to be alive, thinking, and making art in this day and age. With a bent toward performance and time based work, GNAF is an important opportunity on the North Shore of Massachusetts to see work from the cutting-edge of these genres.

The first Gloucester New Arts Performance Series event will be held April 29 and 30 and will feature new work from dance artists Alissa Cardone and Sarah Slifer, and music from the Lucky Dragons. The three striking solo performers are focusing on the theme of Consciousness for the event at the Cape Ann YMCA, 71 Middle Street, Gloucester. Admission is $10 / $8 for seARTS members, seniors, and students. Show times are 7 PM on Saturday and 5 PM on Sunday.

"On the Map" is the theme for the main festival weekend, August 11-13. Participating artists have been asked to consider the theme of Mapping in combination with memory, location, history, sociology, economics, the brain, and/or any other combination of mapping concepts. There will be local, national, and international artists showing new and daring work at locations all around the city of Gloucester, throughout the days and evenings.

Ms. Slifer has earned an important reputation in the realm of New Arts. She has been a director and curator of multi-disciplinary arts events since 1998. Dedicated to bringing performance to varied audiences, she has made and directed performance events for street, club, gallery, theatre, factory, island, and more. With a background in experimental dance, improvisation, and music performance, both her art and her directorial work are sensitive to space, movement, time, and sound. Slifer's 2005 Gloucester New Arts Festival brought over 40 artists to Gloucester over a four day period.

Ms. Slifer danced for many years with the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company in Washington DC, and with Vincent Cacialano in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and has collaborated with numerous musicians, composers, actors, writers and visual artists. She has taught Dance at the George Washington University (DC), the School for New Dance Development (Amsterdam), and Dance Base (Edinburgh).

seARTS is a coalition of individual artists, art organizations, cultural and civic groups, and businesses working to improve the economic base for the arts on Cape Ann, and to promote Cape Ann’s thriving arts community and rich arts heritage. More information about seARTS and Gloucester New Arts Festival can be found at www.seARTS.org and www.newartsfestival.com


April 20, 2006 Contact: Susan Erony
978-282-1992