GET INVOLVED with the 2023 Charlotte International Arts Festival!

Table Of Content

• Council Quickies: Public Safety and Police Transparency
• Charlotte Brunch Festival
• Blumenthal's Charlotte International Arts Festival Completes Inaugural Run - Announces 2023 Dates
• Space Explorers Exhibit to Kickoff Programming at New Blumenthal Facility
• What to expect at Lovin’ Life Music Fest this weekend

New this year, an international bazaar at Founders Hall will showcase multicultural artisans and vendors selling their custom wares to the public. CIAF is an annual celebration which magnifies the Queen City’s artistic soul for creation and innovation. The inspiring multi-week festival features curated artistic and immersive experiences from around the world and locally that celebrate diversity and culture. For more information about the events happening at Charlotte International Arts Festival and the participating artists, visit charlotteartsfest.com. Also, check out more arts events scheduled for the coming autumn in our 2022 Fall Arts Guide. Get ready for an expansive and interactive art experience, with the 3rd annual Charlotte International Arts Festival.

Council Quickies: Public Safety and Police Transparency

We believe Black-owned media is vital to building healthy, Black communities. When you support the work of QCity Metro, you also support the communities we serve. In addition, the festival will offer a concert production of the Tony-award-winning “Fela!

Charlotte Brunch Festival

Keep an eye on Blumenthal’s website and social media for location and details. Ballantyne’s Backyard features over 100 acres of lush green space with miles of running and walking trails, rolling hills and catch-and-release ponds the whole family can enjoy. The community park offers unparalleled open space and is accessible to everyone. With it being the festival’s inaugural year, Blumenthal and BooneOakely are leaning in to the notion that people don’t know what CIAF is—yet.

Blumenthal's Charlotte International Arts Festival Completes Inaugural Run - Announces 2023 Dates

“Lotty” by Moradavaga, a participatory art installation, is out of Portugal and Italy. The installation features a giant squid influenced by the best-known writings of Herman Melville and Jules Verne. The tube-like, orange creature allows visitors to look through the squid’s eyes and walk over its lengthy tentacles. Fans of the glowing model Earth in Founders Hall may also want to check out the immersive “Bella Gaia” show, at the Booth Playhouse Sept. 30 - Oct. 1. The show is inspired by astronauts who have seen Earth from space and features live music, dance and satellite imagery.

Check out the Festival of India, sponsored by CIAF - WCNC.com

Check out the Festival of India, sponsored by CIAF.

Posted: Fri, 22 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Festival in the Park

This year’s featured acts include Architects of Air, out of Nottingham, UK, an immersive walk-through experience that invites visitors to a world apart from the normal and everyday through labyrinthian tunnels and cavernous domes of saturated color accompanied by a gentle sensory soundscape. The exhibit plays through the entirety of the festival, September 16–October 2 in Ballantyne’s Backyard. When Blumenthal was shut down in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it received a Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) from the federal government. Much of that funding went toward the launch of the festival, with the aim of getting people back to work. With SVOG, Blumenthal was able to put more than half a million dollars toward the creative talent behind the festival, from projection artists to theatrical storytellers, dancers, technicians, and more.

Space Explorers Exhibit to Kickoff Programming at New Blumenthal Facility

Another short walk to Founders Hall will reveal a giant, levitating model Earth that invites viewers to reflect on our planet the way an astronaut might from space. Musical acts will pop up again this year at Levine Avenue of the Arts and Ballantyne’s Backyard. New CIAF venues will include a stage on Wells Fargo Plaza and new Ballantyne venue The Amp.

What to expect at Lovin’ Life Music Fest this weekend

US artist Jen Lewin’s Aqueous is a series of interactive pathways that swirl with light when walked over in an ever-changing landscape. These exhibits will be free and open to the public throughout the duration of the festival, September 15–October 1. Latin American contemporary social circus initiative, Nouveau Sud, is a community favorite rooted in the underground dance/acrobatic/physical theater scenes. Presented by Blumenthal Performing Arts, the two-week festival is a celebration of imaginative visual and performing arts from the most creative international and local minds with over 200 exhibitions, events and programming around Uptown and south Charlotte’s Ballantyne neighborhood.

Lineup Announced for Blumenthal’s New Charlotte International Arts Festival

Visitors will get to see a giant sea squid, circus performers, big inflatable pillow people, giant airheads (not the candy), and interact with larger-than-life bird puppets, which proved a hit during the festival's launch in 2022. For the full festival lineup, keep an eye on charlotteartsfest.com and @cltartsfest for the most up-to-date information. Each selected artist will receive a 60-minute time slot for performing outdoors in either Uptown Charlotte or Ballantyne. Each selected artist or group will receive a stipend of $1,000 for a full-length performance or $250 for a pop-up performance. Wilson’s exhibit Heart and Sole CLT preserves the city’s soul and history and combines it with the present by using the Air Jordan 1 High OG — the iconic shoe of one of the city’s most famous residents, Michael Jordan — as the canvas. The exhibit will be on display at The Brooklyn Collective throughout the festival’s run.

Programming will expand to Founders Hall, including the return of Gaia, UK artist Luke Jerram’s 23-foot, suspended, three-dimensional, illuminated sculpture of the earth that will run September 15–October 1, and a locally produced Argentinian Tango Milonga international dance party on October 1. Now in its 25th year, the annual Festival of India will take over the Belk Theater on September 23 for a dazzling display of Indian dance, music, art, food, and more, with a mission to foster appreciation of the cultural diversity of India and facilitate understanding that promotes communal harmony. —events, tickets, performance times, and more information, visit charlotteartsfest.com. From Australian artist Amanda Parer and the studio that brought us the “big bunnies” invasion of Uptown comes Man, a large-scale, contemporized version of Rodin’s “Thinker.” Man holds his head in search of answers and invites visitors to do the same.

The Latin American Festival returns for its 33rd year to welcome internationally renowned musical acts, cuisine, a community-organized interactive village, marketplace, dance performances, and more to its new home in Ballantyne’s Backyard on September 23. CIAF will also offer chances for local artists to shine, with opportunities to work alongside visiting international artists and create work for various public projects. Blumenthal has released a call for artists to participate in the 100 Tiny Things project (open August 1–August 10).

In its second year, CIAF features dozens of local, national and international artists, musicians and performers, along with food from across the globe, at more than 200 attractions (many free) across multiple sites in uptown and Ballantyne from Sept. 15 through Oct. 1. Fun for everyone, from families to individuals, we invite you to participate in imaginative arts’ experiences throughout our city over the course of 17 days. We invite you to stay awhile, play, and welcome curiosity, as we begin to see our city through new eyes. CHARLOTTE — Blumenthal Performing Arts is set to bring its annual celebration of visual and performing arts to venues across Charlotte from Sept. 15 – Oct. 1. This year, the festival is also partnering with Festival of India for an event at Belk Theater on Sept. 23 with Indian dance, food, art and music, as well as the Latin American Festival for an “interactive village” with a marketplace, performances, food and music the same day at Ballantyne’s Backyard.

The festival lineup has been announced with the launch of a new website at charlotteartsfest.com. The festival's host, Blumenthal Performing Arts, says this year's festival has more than 200 events including art pieces, live performances and food in uptown Charlotte and Ballantyne that "bring together Charlotte's local and international communities with global artists in a cultural celebration." The Charlotte International Arts Festival is an annual celebration of imaginative visual and performing arts from the most creative international and local minds. Fun for everyone, from families to individuals, we invite you to stay awhile, play, and welcome curiosity, as we begin to see our city through new eyes.

Boris “Bluz” Rogers, director of creative engagement at Blumenthal Performing Arts, is excited about so many things that the competition brings to Charlotte. Two popular festivals — Festival of India and the Latin American Festival — will be part of CIAF. The events will be in various locations in Uptown Charlotte and Ballantyne. Guests can also make crafts, climb a rock wall, skate in an outdoor roller rink, dance along a glowing, light-up path reminiscent of a board game like Candyland, and encounter 100 tiny, smile-provoking art pieces on a nature trail.

The new energized and inclusive fitness center, focused on multiple approaches to fitness from personal training, individual workouts, specialized classes, weight rooms, and a water massage chair, confirm TIAA’s commitment to employee wellbeing. A live moss wall and custom reception desk of timber sourced directly from TIAA’s campus. Smart-technology lockers, large changing rooms, walk-in showers, and intuitive wayfinding complemented by graphics and invigorating lighting heighten the experience. To encourage employees to experience time outdoors, the campus also provides walking trails, mini golf, bocce ball, pickle ball, and basketball courts. With the company’s stated commitment to the environment in mind, TIAA protected the natural wetlands providing a welcoming wellness moment. And while it wasn’t her own house the Ballantyne resident and multidisciplinary artist was constructing, her focus and commitment to the project was nonetheless all-consuming.

The Wells Fargo Stage will host free cultural events and concerts across musical genres, from Brazilian jazz to flamenco, R&B, hip hop, a cappella—and even MJ-themed lip sync battles. CIAF will have the honor of presenting the first major public performances at Ballantyne’s new outdoor venue, The Amp. The Concert on September 16, a powerful celebration of the eclectic energy of Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti, one of the world’s most celebrated music legends and the founding father of Afrobeat. September 29, Novant Health presents Disney Pixar’s Coco Live-to-Film Concert, featuring a screening of the complete film with Oscar and Grammy-winning composer Michael Giacchino’s musical score performed by Mexico’s 20-member Orquesta Folclórica Nacional de México. Fitness classes, presented by Brighthouse Financial, will take place on Saturdays and Sundays in various locations in Ballantyne’s Backyard and Levine Avenue of the Arts, against backdrops of inspiring CIAF art installations to spark thought and foster meditation.