A dazzling array of Skidmore College’s best and brightest in the creative communities, the Arts Quad Party returned in full force on September 15 to kick off the start of a brand-new fall semester. The Arts Quad Party is a celebration of talent and hard work of Skidmore’s Fine Arts, Idea Lab, Arts Administration, Media and Documentary Studies (MDOCS), Dance, Theatre, Music, and the Tang Teaching Museum. The Arts Administration department allows students to understand non-profit arts organizations. MDOCs is a creative studies field at Skidmore that combines documentary filmmaking and different forms of multimedia. All of these departments are invested in a form of imaginative storytelling that can be visual, musical, production-based, or instructional and are all fueled by the same creative spark of ingenuity. They team up annually to create the Arts Quad Party, which celebrates the positive and wide-ranging artistic impact across campus.
Formed five years ago, the Arts Quad Party was initially intended to incentivize students “who had never set foot in the building” to come check out the JKB, and it has since evolved into a social event which helps members of the Skidmore community destress, socialize and get in touch creatively before beginning the academic year.
Walking through the various booths into the Arts Quad Party, students and professors were greeted with all sorts of exciting music, from ABBA to Rihanna. With “Voulez-Vous” playing in the background, students started coming up to the different booths to engage in a wide array of fun: face painting in vibrant hues with Yej Rodriguez‘23, and character drawings by Mark Gregory. Excited students of all class years started activities like making beads, run by the student dance committee and coloring potted plants with theater students. Some fan favorites included making polaroids in water on napkins with the Art Department and the Tang Student Advisory Council’s DIY shirt making.
The Arts Quad Party has become an integral part of what faculty who inspire students to participate in the arts, and returning arts students look forward to each year. With its music, food, booths, and engagement with various activities, it is a major draw for students across campus. However, according to Sue Kessler, the Janet Kinghorn Bernhard (JKB) theater’s theater management professor and creator of the festival, along with former Skidmore First Lady Marie Glotzbach, the most important part of the Arts Quad Party is its fun and welcoming nature. Equally as important is the support and visibility it provides to the various interdisciplinary arts departments, which keeps the arts strong and relevant at Skidmore.
Professor Kessler said “The arts naturally gravitate towards collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.” She thinks this interdisciplinary quality “exemplifies and underlines Skidmore’s mission to be broad minded and to be open to expressing oneself.” While the spirit of the party is all in good fun, the idea of student self-expression, Professor Kessler believes, is all a valuable part of the Skidmore identity that deserves time to be thoroughly cultivated.
With the warm sun shining overhead, Professor Kessler continued explaining how the festival also serves “to remind people that a creative approach is a healthy approach.”
Kessler continued, “this event might catch people that aren’t used to or haven’t in a while planted a succulent or planted a pot or expressed themselves through making an instrument. These crafts can be a refreshing reminder of stepping back and expanding out the way one thinks about the work you all do.”
While we all must wait again until next year for the fair, students can continue to support the arts year round through trips to see all the performances and creative work produced in the fine, visual and performing arts departments.