The Brandeis Festival of the Arts—a longstanding campus tradition—is being reformatted this year to a continuous, 24-hour arts marathon named “Art Never Sleeps,” which will take place from six p.m. on April 18 to six p.m. on April 19. The Hoot sat down with Concert and Events Administrator for the Creative Arts, Natalie Sciallo, and Festival of the Arts student committee members Devyn Oh ’26 and Iyegbekosa Ohanmu ’27 to discuss the Festivals’ reimagining.
The Festival of the Arts has been an important part of Brandeis culture for many years, ever since it was begun by Leonard Bernstein, the director of Brandeis’ Center of Creative Arts, in 1951. According to Sciallo, “The Festival of the Arts was started several decades ago, by Leonard Bernstein himself, and it was a signature event of the School of Creative Arts. [Bernstein] believed that the best way for people to learn any discipline like science, math, anything, was through arts and through community experience.” Sciallo continues, “It’s had a very strong legacy through the years, and my hope is that we can really bring it back and make students the forefront of a very strong, established event … to put students in the spotlight and give them the funds and resources and outlets they need to exhibit their talents.”
When reimagining this year’s Festival of the Arts, Sciallo said that “the hope was to appeal to a broader student audience and to promote this idea of that artistry is always taking place, even in the darkest and quietest moments, even when you’re asleep, even when you know it’s pitch black at seven o’clock at night, or inspiration can always strike, and the students are the greatest testimony of that.” Ohanmu added that, “As students, we are awake all the time,” and that the new format would highlight that experience.
Sciallo said that while “in the past, the Festival of the Arts has been about a week, sometimes longer,” the goal this year was to create an “artistic village.” According to Sciallo, that “basically implies that there are things happening pretty much everywhere you turn on campus, which I really want to be the reality.” Sciallo continued, “Our hope is to just create a huge hub of artistic activity that doesn’t have gatekeeping. You don’t need certain skills to be a part of it. You just have people who want to express their art.”
There were several challenges with adapting to the new format. According to Sciallo, “the school year is ending, so spring is a huge time for finals and huge events, and we don’t want to oversaturate what’s already going on at Brandeis. So I think one of the compromises we’ve proposed is to incorporate events that are already taking place in the spring as part of the festival.” She continued, “this has been a huge event throughout many like basically the beginning of Brandeis, and we’re completely rewriting it into this new format. And we want to make this appealing to students, but also honor its history. I think that can be a tricky balance to maintain. And you know, there’s some community members who have been going to this event for years, and we want to make sure that they’re represented, but we also just want to make this by the students, for the students.”
As for the types of performances students can expect, the Brandeis Television Club will be showcasing their film festival, and there will be an opening performance with a variety of genres, such as brass band, R&B and jazz fusion. Oh, a music major, will be performing jazz-pop and electronic music from an album he is making, while Ohanmu, also a music major, will be performing as part of a duo described as “like R and B soul, but rock fusion.”
Students for Environmental Action will also hold an exhibition of visual art. Sciallo stated, “They’re looking to capture the feelings of students who are upset with the world around them, or just the environment around them, and to gain some testimonies, to hear how people are feeling, how they’ve been coping with the world around them.” The Theater Department will also host a performance called “Small Mouth Sounds” in Spignold, which Sciallo characterized as “a very abstract play, and it will be funny, but I’m sure heavy at points.”
Lastly, Sciallo said that the 24-hour format would continue for next year’s Festival of the Arts. “Of course, it depends on the feedback we get this time around, but we really want to make this everything it can possibly be, so that students are engaged and happy with this 24-hour format. But we’re hoping to continue it.”
