2020 forces Denton’s arts and performances to make big changes | News

It all started with South By Southwest canceling Austin’s huge music and film festival, and it wasn’t long before the spring festivals closed early.

Denton has two major festivals in March, the Texas Storytelling Festival and the Thin Line. The Tejas Storytelling Association hosted the opening day of its 2020 festival, but on the second day, authorities announced that it would have to close the festival to comply with the county’s emergency declaration.

Thin Line, a documentary, music and photography festival, canceled all shows and personal exhibitions, but was able to host film screenings and some online question and answer sessions. The model worked so well that authorities announced that the 2021 festival will also be online.

A new music festival, BUTTS Fest – Better Understanding Through Trash Service – had to close its doors to comply with the emergency declaration. Denton’s musician Michael Tong Kokkinakis launched what would be a 45-act festival in the second week of March. The festival was a fixture for Earth Day and a way to spread the word about the weekly clean-up of Kokkinakis voluntary garbage around Denton Square in the city center. Kokkinakis was focused on Square’s cigarette litter and cleaning cigarette butts. The festival also aimed to make the population aware of the large-scale recycling of cigarette butts (the most common item in the city and the state) in material used in the manufacture of park benches and recreational structures. It is not yet known whether BUTTS Fest will return in 2021, but the group is still active and evangelizing about waste, its impact and how to clean Denton.

The Denton Arts & Jazz Festival canceled this year’s event, triggering a chain reaction of disappointment from locals who never miss the three free days of music and art festival. The jazz festival is one of the biggest events in Denton every year – second only to the North Texas Fair and Rodeo. The annual event includes seven stages with everything from choir, gospel, country, blues and jazz, with main shows reserved for some of the most well-known solo acts (Chick Corea, Arturo Sandoval, Buddy Guy) and bands (The Neville Brothers, Los Lobos , McCoy Tyner Trio).

Smaller festivals have also decided to take off 2020: Denton Cinco de Mayo, Denton Redbud Festival and Denton’s Day of the Dead Festival.

The North Texas Fair and Rodeo was perhaps the biggest event to survive the pandemic. The event went from August to October, and made the most of the external aspects of the event. The fair added a screen so that groups could see rodeo events and shows while socializing.

For the newly merged Theater Denton (formerly Denton Community Theater and Music Theater of Denton), the pandemic hindered the disclosure of the new name and brand, but it also closed the Campus Theater. The season was postponed and, like so many other organizations, the company broadcast The Gin Game online, as well as the family Christmas production, “Fireside Footlights”, which will be broadcast online at www.footlightdenton.com until December 31. The company took advantage of the months of an empty house, however, and started some renovations and updating the historic theater.

For Denton’s music scene, COVID-19 was a punch in the stomach. The bars had to close, and the city’s most famous music venues, Dan’s Silverleaf and Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios, closed their doors for the first part of the closure. Rubber Gloves gradually reopened and Dan’s Silverleaf launched streaming shows with tickets. Andy Bar performed some shows with limited capacity, and LSA Burger Co. canceled most of the songs at the rooftop bar. Local music venues campaigned for the Save Our Stages Act, a relief account that will distribute $ 10 billion through Small Business Administration grants to live venue operators, promoters, producers and talent representatives, and the grants would be equal to less than 45% of 2019 gross revenue, or $ 12 million.

The relief bill was approved and the concessions can be used for rent, mortgages, utilities, PPE, payments to contractors, maintenance, administrative costs, taxes, operating leases and capital expenditures related to compliance with state social distance guidelines , local or federal.

Denton’s two dance companies, the Ballet of North Central Texas Festival and Denton City Contemporary Ballet, decided that their annual shows would continue. The Ballet Festival changed its annual performance The Nutcracker for Gaylord Texan, he cut his cast in half and made the dancers rehearse and perform wearing masks. The Contemporary Ballet recorded its annual production of A gift for Emma and broadcast two presentations to ticket buyers.

The closure meant that Denton’s downtown pub, the Patterson-Appleton Arts Center, closed to the public. The city’s largest visual arts organization, the Visual Arts Society of Texas, had to postpone and postpone its annual shows.

The Greater Denton Arts Council, which operates the arts center, coordinates all of the exhibitions and most of the programming that keeps the city center busy and booked for much of the year, created online exhibitions on its website and made extensive use of its social networks to keep local and regional art in the public’s imagination.

The arts society transferred its monthly meetings of members, demos and critics groups online, and found that its members took them especially to demonstrations and classes taught in virtual format.

In the fall, the arts center reopened, but is closed for the holidays until January 4.

A new visual arts company, Envision Arts, had been holding art exhibitions at local companies – mainly at Armadillo Ale Works. Artist Ginger Cochran pioneered the company and, during the pandemic, discovered that the affiliate magazine, Envision ARTS, built an increasing number of readers.

The board will open “Hopeful Wanderers: Works by Angelia Ford”, at the Festival Hall, for an in-person screening on January 4.

The council planned Elementary Art After School, a four-week program that will bring small classes to the center from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, Tuesdays, from January 5 to 26, for a fiber and weaving program with the theme “It’s cold there out. “The next program will be from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm on Tuesdays from February 2 to February 23, with students working with clay. The program is for ages 6 to 10, and the tuition costs $ 80 and includes supplies.