Newtown Arts Festival Less Than

A Month Away

On September 15, close to two years of hard work by Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC) will come together in the form of the Newtown Arts Festival. The two-day event will take place at Fairfield Hills on Saturday and Sunday, September 15-16, from 9 am to 6 pm each day. Admission is $5 and children under 12 will get in for free.

Tents will be set up so the festival will take place rain or shine. Attendees are asked to leave pets at home.

There will be live musical performances including the festival opener by Standard and Blue, a jazz group; as well as singer-songwriter Martin Ear, Boplicity, The Flagpole Radio Café Orchestra and Peter Ferreira & Friends on Saturday.

Music will continue on Sunday with Newtown High School Singers, Danbury Trombone Outfit, Aurora Martin and Robert Rabonowitz, String Fingers, Smokebomb Mondays and Fat Chance.

Acclaimed Poet Dick Allen is scheduled to be at the festival on Saturday to announce the winner of The Newtowner magazine’s poetry contest, and the magazine staff is also coordinating, for Sunday, a variety comedy show that incorporates the audience. Newtown High School students are organizing a poetry slam for Saturday.

There will also be booths with workshops and demonstrations, which will include arts and crafts workshops for both adults and kids, as well as dance workshops that teach dances ranging from Irish dancing to Funk-Jazz.

A coloring contest will have participants vying for a gift certificate for Toys R Us, with members of Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue manning the contest tent on Saturday and members of Newtown’s recently formed CERT team covering the booth on Sunday.

Vendors will be selling food and art of a wide variety, from fine arts, fiber arts, whirligigs and beaded jewelry to homemade organic dog biscuits, hula hoops for all ages, quilts, leather crafts and woodenware,

A number of jewelers will be participating, including two sisters who create handcrafted jewelry from reclaimed game pieces. Local photographers, authors, textile artists, stone sculptors and painters have all signed on to participate.

Charter CommunityVision 21, the local cable access station, hosted by Charter Communications, will be offering two workshops for community members who would like to learn the art of video production. CTV-21 will be on-site both days, offering the two workshops — Video Production Hot Spot and Still Camera Production Project — at timed intervals each day. Video Production is a one-hour class for three participants; Still Camera is a 45-minute class, also for three people at a time.

Please note registration for the CTV-21 workshops is required; call 203-304-4050 to register or visit NewtownArtsFestival.com for details.

From the art of origami, the art of landscape design, Irish dance, Comedia dell’Arte, Japanese fish printing and camera basics to everyday hip-hop (dance), sock puppets, juggling, writing for young adults and even becoming part of a fantasy flower garden filled with ballet dancers, there are workshops of myriad interests and tastes. The Newtown International Center for Education has a series workshops planned, covering Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, Japanese and Hindi language and cultures. Inspiration Stations will invite guests to try their hands at fiber arts including rug hooking, weaving and knitting, creating recycled CD art, and Odyssey of the Mind challenges.

Planning and public events formally kicked off two years ago with an art contest to design the logo of the festival. The winner was Tracy Van Buskirk, who did a linoleum block print of Ram Pasture (pictured).

Additional information, including the weekend’s complete schedule, is available online at                                                              

NewtownArtsFestival.com.