What Is Nomadic Festival?

What Is Nomadic Festival?

Nomadic Festival is a group of individuals who travel around the nation putting on free festivals involving puppets, drums, fire, workshops, literature exchanges, theatrical performances, etc. We're a group of people with constantly evolving ideas and many different interests. This makes for events with lots of different things going on being done by lots of different people. It's a smorgasboard of crazy chaotic fun.

Different things happen at different shows. We try to hold workshops and discussions early on, providing a social background for the event and "breaking the ice" for further interaction amongst each other. We work with the interaction between performers and audience, trying to tear down barriers, enticing people to become involved in our shows. This is done through various performance techniques and that include theatre, drama and life-size puppets. We also hold traditional performances with stage puppet shows, shadow puppets, theatre and spoken word poetry. The emphasis is definitely more on the bizarre though. Later in the evening we have various bands playing, including live drums and when possible, fire dancers. When a sound system is available, we also try to incorporate DJs and experimental electronic music.

Where we play is also something that varies a lot. We try to make all our festivals free events. We prefer playing outdoors and will often hold festivals in parks or on beaches. Often we will do a parade around parts of a city with drums, puppets and costumes. Other times circumstances dictate that we play indoors in abandoned warehouses, squats, or even occasionally clubs. The events this year will be happening both indoors and outdoors, in both sanctioned and unsanctioned spaces. As the date for a city draws near we will be providing more information on our infoline at (888) 234-8860.

There is a very dynamic feel to the ideas about Nomadic Festival. We are experimenting with many ideas and nothing is fixed. Presently, we are seeking to integrate art with social action, seeing the two as intertwined. We will be doing this through political theater and by creating intense experiences which challenge people to question their lives and to seek out greater fulfillment. Whether it is challenging people's everyday interactions, cooking food and building friendships, setting up literature tables, participating in housing takeovers or just putting on a good show, we believe in giving something back to the communities which we visit.

Many different people from all across the nation will be joining up this year to create the Nomadic Festival together. Come join us on the road or in your town to help create an experiment in life, art and politics. Or better yet, create your own nomadic festival. Read on to find out more about how you can participate in this Nomadic Festival '97.

nomadic@musespace.com