I have friends with kids and to hear them tell it, May is insane. This seems to bear out on the arts calendar where there are several end-of-year performances for our very young artists and community activities geared to families.
I may not have kids, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the energy, creativity and skill they bring to the stage. Let’s start with Momentum, whose year-end performances (celebrating the Harlem Renaissance) are May 15 & 17. If you’ve never seen Momentum, you need to go. In the past, I have left feeling uplifted and full of hope for humanity just by watching these kids (more than 1,000 from schools across the city) embrace dance and express their joy through movement. It’s transformative.
Another, equally, transformative production coming our way this weekend is brought to us by the Thiossane West African Dance Institute. They are performing Mbenketal Khalyei (happiness of the children) at the Lincoln Theatre May 17 & 18. This concert will feature dancers from a wide range of ages and showcase the institute’s children and adult community outreach program.
Columbus Children’s Theatre has long been a place for kids interested in theater to get high-quality theater education. On May 17, they open their production of Peter Pan at the beautiful Southern Theatre.
On May 19 Maroon Arts Group presents their popular MPACC Box Party—which includes shipping containers remade into arts spaces. This is a wonderful community event that has something for all ages (Fun Fact: Maroon Arts Group won a Community Arts Partnership award from the Greater Columbus Arts Council, in 2018 for the Box Park).
On Wednesday, May 15 Cbus will be having an event that is worthy of a FOMO reaction. Columbus Symphony Concertmaster Joanna Frankel will perform on Paganini’s Il Cannone violin, which has not been played in the U.S. in more than a decade. The violin—in itself a work of art—comes to us via our sister city relationship with Genoa. It is more than 200 years old, was the property of Italian violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini and is world famous for its sound. Il Cannone (yes the violin has a name) rarely travels from Genoa and when it does, it has its own armed escort. All of this is to say, it’s kind of a big deal and the opportunity to see it, and hear it played in Columbus may not come again in my lifetime.
Also coming up this weekend: Cbus-based band Cousin Simple is playing at the Basement May 18. And MadLab brings back Theater Roulette. This is a live play shorts festival (20 years and running) and this year they have three sets of new works rotating over three weekends. The three themes are Apocalypse, Borgs, and Cyberspace. This weekend you can see Borgs Thursday, Friday is Cyberspace and Saturday is the Apocalypse (the theme, not the actual apocalypse, that’s coming May 31). I’m sure all the playwrights are awesome, but since I have had some interaction with playwright Chris Leyva, who will be representing in the Borg section with Dinosaur Discovery: A Talk About Paleontology by Dr. Kramer, I’m a little biased about seeing that short.
Find even more events happening his weekend at columbusmakesart.com and share by tagging #artmakescbus as you enjoy all the arts in Cbus.
Lacey Luce is a digital strategist for the Greater Columbus Arts Council who thinks Silky should have gone home #teamwestforever.