Calling all Youth!

Roanoke! Yeah, you there! You're looking mighty fine. Did you get your teeth whitened? You're looking as young and fresh as the upcoming 2010 Marginal Arts Festival, celebrating it's third year of confusing your parents with a bunch of crazy, underrated art, artists and loonies. Hey, it's just around the corner!

Since the runaway success of the wild, crazy-great 2009 Festival (Hey, remember the fuzzy yellow bags of stuff?), we've packed the 2010 Fest with so much quirk and tomfoolery we can hardly contain the glee. We have a much-improved, highly organized NEW WEBSITE up and runnin' so you can cram even more of these awesome events into your hectic schedule: www.marginalarts.com 32 events, 60 Artists form Maine to Florida, over 6 days of cultural mayhem!

Check out Pushcart Prize winner and Oxford American contributor Jack Pendarvis (He likes Jerry Lewis!) reading from his delicious, hilarious catalog before unnamed Mystery Bands (The Magic Twig and Rootstone) scores the legendary silent film Nosferatu! Scream a bunch of random stuff at our killer Dadaist/Neo-Absurdist poetry freak-outs! Gawk at the trapeze artists and die by chocolate at our hedonistic and delightful Fat Tuesday celebration! And hey, kids have fun here too, so bring 'em in droves!

These are just a pinch of the hijinks that shall ensue. So clear out your schedule, oil up your rickshaw and whiten your teeth for the 2010 Marginal Arts Festival! Starts February 11. More info at www.marginalarts.com.

Don't miss it, gorgeous.

Director's PROCLAMATION

Welcome to the FREE STATE of Marginal Arts! For the six days of Marginal Arts Festival underrepresented communities, art forms, voices and artists of the region DECLARE their INDEPENDENCE from the hum-drum everyday, and intend to celebrate the carnival season!

Join us for absurdist activities, insightful discussions, carnival parades, scholarly lectures, top-flight performances, frolic and revelry, challenging museum and gallery exhibitions, family fun, literary readings,hands-on workshops, avant music, multimedia collaborations, international underground art forms and Community bonding hilarity! WE declare that it is the CITIZENS that define the city, not the other way around. The artists, entrepreneurs and small communities that OCCUPY our city can make this our region a better place to live by starting a dialog. Grab your rubber chicken, silly hat or crazy costume and TAKE TO THE STREETS. Party 'till Mardi Gras because the Free State ends on Fat Tuesday!

Brian Counihan, Marginal Arts Festival Director

Festival Parade gets a great plug!

2010 Festival "Passport" only $20 (More than $50 value)

ONE PRICE COVERS ALL EVENTS AND MORE!!!

The passport lists all events, dates, times and venues AND acts as your own interactive art work. Collect stamps and art scraps from the huge selection of the regions best contemporary art events and performances. Compete with your friends to see how many events you can prove you attended over the 6 days.

WE BET YOU CAN'T GET TO THEM ALL !

FREE ADMISSION TO THE TAUBMAN MUSEUM OF ART AND THE O. WINSTON LINK MUSEUM WITH THE PASSPORT during the festival dates February 11-16!

While most events are free there are several spectacular events where tickets or Passports are required:

Thursday February 11 8pm Eugene Chadbourne Jazz KirkAvenue Music $5

Friday February 12 7:30 "Nosferatu" Silent Film scored by live bands and readings from celebrated and Very Marginal author Jack Pendarvis $5

8pm "Blueground Undergrass & Blue Mule" The best in regionally inspired underground and blue grass music

Kirk Avenue Music Hall. $5

Saturday February 13 7:30 "Miss Lucy" Concert Sampler of a world premier Folk Opera based on Roanoke's Lucy Addison. Dumas Center $5

Sunday February 14 2-5pm "Chinese New Year" Celebration events Taubman Museum of Art $10

Includes a workshop with Colette Fu on Pop-up Postcards, and A dragon Dance.

Tuesday February 16 7-10pm "Fat Tuesday" Fitzpatrick Hall, Jefferson Center $10

Great desserts, music, dancers, trapeze acts and more. THE MARDI GRAS PARTY for Roanoke.

Order NOW as these unique passports made by artist John Reburn will be produced in a numbered, limited edition.

Passports will be available by the end of January.

To order email brian@communityhigh.net

2010 Festival Highlights February 11 through 16

February 11 Thursday

Workshop with Blueground Undergrass. Music Lab at Jefferson Center 3-4pm

Festival opening Event at Hollins- E. D. Wilson Museum 5-7 pm

"When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans"

&

"Stanley Lewis: 2010 frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence"

"Open Doors Conversation at Claude Moore Auditorium, 7 pm

Eugene Chadbourne at Kirk Avenue Music Hall 8pm

February 12 Friday

Box Lunch Forum at The Taubman Museum of Art, Noon

"Colette Fu"

"Sew Me Up" Exhibition of work by nationally recognized artists using the marginalized media of embroidery and sewing. This exhibition is not your grandma's craft show though, the work is intelligent, provocative and often explicit. Artists: Lily DeSaussure, Orly Cogan, Rachel Bernstein, Jennifer Boe and Maria St. Clair. Curated by Susan Jamison- Dialog Gallery

"Cows in a Field" Installations, photographs and sculptures by artists Jacob Smith, Sean Cuddy and David Wertz- Warehouse Row

"International Mail Art" & Fluxus Performance Stations - Community High School

Open Studio Exhibitions Fleda Ring, Ann Trinkel

"We Are Tiger Dragon People" Photographs of Yi Minority o f S. W. China, assembled into Pop-Up Books. Philadelphia Artist Colette Fu- Taubman Museum of Art, Artrium 5-7pm

Festival Launch

Christine Carr. Black & White Works O. Winston Link Museum. 7pm

"Nosferatu" Silent Film Scored by Live Band. TBA 7:30pm

Blueground Undergrass & Blue Mule. Kirk Avenue Music Hall. 8pm

February 13 Saturday

"A Postmodern Happening" Community High School 10 am - 9pm Activities All Day!

"The Marginal Arts Festival Parade" Starts at Campbell & 1st 11-1pm

"Emerging Artists" Exhibition of work by Patsy Bessalo. Downtown Library. Music by Oinker, postmodern punk by people old enough to know better.

"Miss Lucy" Folk Opera concert sample. Dumas Center for the Arts 7pm

February 14 Sunday

"A Swarm Of Art" Community High School Noon - 9pm Activities All Day!

"The Year of the Tiger" Chinese New Year At Taubman with Local Colors. Tiger Face painting, papercutting, paperfolding, dragon dance and dumplings later. 3-5pm

"Pop-up Book Workshop for grown-ups" with Philadelphia Artist Colette Fu 2-5pm

"Beanstalk Presents: FC2 Alternative Press Authors Moire Crone and Michael Martone" Hollins University, Wyndham-Roberts Library 8pm

February 15 Monday

"Workshop with Michael Martone" Hollins 10 am - noon

"Absurdist Activities" Workshop at Community High School, 10- noon

"History of Miss Lucy Adisson" Dumas 10-noon

"Right to Shoes" Workshop at Waterheater 3-5Pm

"Arts District Pot luck/ Open House. 110 Campell Avenue 5-8pm

February 16 Tuesday

Fat Tuesday Celebration Fitzgerald Hall, Jefferson Center. 7pm