Responses to the political tensions of the past year and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will take center stage at Adelphi University's Fall Arts Festival.
The annual event, this year on Wednesday, October 6, will offer the Adelphi community an opportunity to collaborate and reflect on a particular theme: “Resilience, Reflection and Rebuilding Connection: Healing Through the Arts.”
“The Fall Arts Festival is a significant event in how it brings the campus together as a community through the arts while highlighting the talents of our alumni and students,” said Kellyann Monaghan, associate professor and chair of the Department of Art and Art History at Adelphi and a coordinator of the festival. “This year, the event is even more vital because of our need to reconnect after the struggles of these past two years.”
The festival honors Adelphi’s resilience in powering through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and reflects on the issues of racial, gender and identity injustice in the country. It will showcase musical theater, dance, poetry, film screenings and visual art presented by Adelphi faculty, students and alumni. The events are designed to use the arts as a tool for exploring ways of rebuilding human connections as many return to in-person work and classes for the first time after months of isolation. Maggie Lally ’82, associate dean of faculty programs and a co-organizer of the festival, said this year’s festival will once again include in-person events while still following COVID protocols.
“We have more alumni involved this year, and we’re hoping to be able to do almost every event in person,” Lally said. “A number of events are happening outdoors to comply with COVID restrictions, but also to allow artists to engage with our beautiful campus.”
Hannah Allen and Christopher Saucedo, studio art faculty at Adelphi, will lead students in collaborative art installations and experiences on campus. Adelphi alumni participants, including Gabrielle Deonath ’18, Akua Mireku-Bass and Samantha Dominik ’17, and others are set to perform at this year’s event.
Other events scheduled for the festival include a roundtable discussion on using art for social transformation, screenings of films and other multimedia works about COVID produced by Adelphi alumni, an open-mic reading of fiction, poetry and essays—as well as a dance performance, grow/BACK, choreographed by alumna Hannah Franz ’18, exploring the concept of healing and nurturing one’s inner child.
“The Fall Arts Festival demonstrates how the arts at Adelphi are central to bringing renewed life and energy to campus as we face the new normal,” Monaghan said.
Learn more about the 2021 Fall Arts Festival.