Published May 13, 2010
Andrew’s keeping us on top of the FBI raids today, so I want to take a second to talk about another feature on today’s Radio Boston: Emerging America, the new Boston arts festival that makes its debut this weekend.
It’s a great, simple idea: collaboration between the ICA, the American Repertory Theater, and the Huntington Theater. Performance art that crosses over between these three different art spaces. Even plays-as-podcasts with scenes that take place all over the city. (Imagine: You’re in Harvard Square, sitting between the Chess Masters and the skaters, listening to a scene from a play. Scene changes. It’s at the Burdick’s down the street. So, off you go. A portable way of breaking down that fourth wall. Nice.)
But what I really like about Emerging America, is that it is so not silo-y. (I just made that up. Any better ways to say “not parochial?”)
Way back when, waaay back, when I first moved out here, I’d tell all my friends, “Oh, I live in Boston.” Though I didn’t live in Boston proper, but back then, it was all one massive urban area to me. But, no, no, no. People would quickly correct me with a sharp, “You so do not live in Boston.” Even though I live about three blocks from the town line. But that’s the kind of detail that matters here. Boston vs. Cambridge. Brookline vs. Newton. Medford vs. Malden. Yes, they’re all distinct and different. But, you know, also kind of silo-y.
The same thinking seems to infect the Boston arts world. The ICA does its thing. The ART does its. The Huntington does its. No real cross-pollination of ideas, members, tastes, exhibits or performances. Enter Emerging America. An anti-silo arts mashup that takes part of its inspiration from SXSW. And look how big that’s become. Let’s see the same thing happen here.
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