Akron’s Light-UP Lantern Festival is back, more brilliant than ever
By Helen Dauka
A mischievous band of gypsies will roll through Akron’s University Park neighborhood on Sat 10/13 from 6-10PM, and you’re invited to join them for Akron’s Light-UP Lantern Festival. This year’s theme, Caravan of Lights, promises to be packed full of adventure and fun.
To learn more, visit LightUpLantern.com.
In it’s 4th year, the festival has established a tradition of transforming Crouse and Kirn Streets into a beautiful world. Each year’s festival has been like candy for visitors’ eyes. Lanterns, music, food and activities have become festival staples, with something for everyone in your family.
“Each year the festival grows into something even better than the year before,” says Light-UP Lantern founder Leandra Drumm. She and her collaborators are very excited about this year’s theme. Last year, the Light-UP Lantern Festival’s Storybooks theme featured 54 participants and surrounded guests with characters from beloved children’s stories including Alice in Wonderland, the Queen and King of Hearts, Little Miss Muffet, Red Riding Hood and The Little Mermaid.
Participants band together each year to create the beautiful lighted lanterns for the festival. This time, visitors will bring the Caravan of Lights to life. Lantern-making will take place throughout the day, and at dusk, a lantern procession featuring your lanterns will wind its way through the streets of University Park starting at 7:15pm.
One of the many magical things about the festival is the way the Akron community comes together to help make the event what it is. The Festival hosts classes throughout the summer and fall seasons to teach people how to make lanterns. The organizers also solicit help in setting up the weeks leading up to the festival, and bring in local vendors.
Haven’t made your lantern yet? That’s okay… During the festival, 6-7PM is “make and take” time, an opportunity for the audience to get into theme and go from spectator to participant. The public is welcome to make lanterns, get face paintings with black light paint, fluorescent nails, and fairy dust tattoos. A new spin on the fairy dust tattoos, a Don Drumm sun will be a tattoo option. Take the ordinary, put a spin on it and make it your own seems to be the attitude at the Light-UP Lantern Festival.
Proud of your artistic skills? You can also participate in a Lantern Competition. Entries will be accepted between 6-7PM by the Paper Moon Stage; up to $500 in Don Drumm Gift Certificates for the winners!
Once you’ve made your lantern, though, the day is hardly over. You’ll find music, art, and performances including gypsy-jazz, visual and theatrical performances, dance performances, interactive shadow puppet story telling, stilt walkers, fire art, henna tattoos, fortune telling and many more talented artists and performers.
Some of the musical acts include performances and gypsy jazz from the likes of: Fast Molasses, Jasmine Dragons, Smokin’ Fez Monkeys, Brick Road Ramblers, Ohio Burn Unit, Moustache Yourself, and many more…
New additions to the festival this year further blur the lines between artist and audience. More vendors and artists have been invited to assist in the festival to make it a more interactive experience for the public. Leandra explained the festival’s relationship with artists saying, “Artists want to work with us because we want to work with them.” Artists have been working together to create more permanent pieces for the festival that can be used for years to come. The festival, volunteers and some of the performers have been working on constructing a gypsy wagon that will act as a stage, with a pull down screen for shadow puppet shows.
Leandra has also been working with artists to create art vending that goes beyond standard vending. Artists had the opportunity to take ordinary objects like carts, wheel chairs and strollers and turn them into functional art within a parameter of price and theme.
Something else that remains a constant at the festival is the support from the Light-UP Lantern Festival sponsors. Don Drumm Studios & Gallery has provided it’s location as host for the festival since the very beginning. In addition to presenting sponsor University Park Alliance, the “Light UP” Lantern Festival in University Park is also supported by premier sponsors Leandra Drumm Designs, Inc., art director Daniel Coffield, Akron Community Foundation’s Neighborhood Partnership Program, METRO Transit, University Park YMCA and Don Drumm Studios & Gallery.
The Light-UP Lantern Festival is Sat 10/13 on Crouse, Kirn and Spicer Streets, surrounding Don Drumm’s Gallery at 437 Crouse St. in Akron. Learn more about the festival at lightuplantern.com, and visit the festival’s fan page for regular updates on Facebook.
[Photos by Elise Gaffney]
Helen Dauka studies public relations at the University of Akron. As of May 2013, she will enter the ever-turbulent waters know as being ‘postgrad.’ When Helen isn’t drowning in the sea of decisions that surround her, she enjoys consuming as much pop culture as she can fit in her brain.