Festival Unbound
A Model of Best Practices
Festival Unbound represents a full catalogue of Best Practices in cultural placemaking. The event’s embrace of cultural integration on all levels provides a worthy model for any small to middle-sized American city. Among those best practices are:
- Exercising the ability to grow artistically and take artistic risks.
- Promoting and supporting regional artists
- Integration of the arts throughout the social and business communities
- Employing the arts for historical interpretation and regional identity
- Employing the arts in support of a cultural and ethnic diversity
- Engaging and exploring important social, human, and environmental civic issues
- Energizing community spaces and neighborhoods
BACKGROUND
In 1998, after an almost 150-year history of building this nation, Bethlehem Steel shut down steel making. To help the community work its way through this massive change, Touchstone Theatre created an arts and culture festival called Steel Festival: The Art of an Industry. In October 2019 Touchstone reprised their Steel Festival with an updated ten-day event, Festival Unbound. Featuring numerous local acts and dozens of performances, the theater invited all of Bethlehem to look deep into the city’s future and imagine the just and creative place the city might become.
GOALS
Festival Unbound was created to address the challenges ahead for the City of Bethlehem and help define the values that will hold the community together as it faces the future. Forged out of community conversations, the basic themes and stories of the festival emerged. Visions of the future transpired on stage, in dance studios, on college campuses, and in public parks as the arts touched Lehigh Valley citizens from all walks of life.
SCHEDULE
Nothing tells the story of the festival, its size, scope and content, like its schedule. The following are the highlights of that schedule:
“Beyond Utopia": Visiting Polish company Teatr Brama leads an original work developed for the festival exploring themes of poverty and inequality.
Community Conversations: This noontime series explored festival themes in a relaxed environment, moderated by Christopher Shorr.
Inside/Outside City: From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 9 random acts of inclusion featuring musical, recreational, and artistic events
“To Hunt A Wild Utopia”: a new commissioned work by Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre taking audiences on a wild theatrical ride
“Poets, Troubadours, and Troublemakers”: Three evenings of live, original music in collaboration with Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse and Anne Hills.
“Forward March: The Future of Our Warriors”: An original production by Women Veterans
Sustainability Forum: A town hall-style gathering to brainstorm how to create a healthy and connected community
“Embracing Bethlehem/Abrazos a Belén”: An original site-specific theatrical experience of song and story by New York’s Pregones Theatre
Community Meal & Epilogue: A chance to enjoy Bethlehem’s favorite foods, hear live music, and share takeaways from Festival UnBound
Closing ceremony: Song, dance, and more on Payrow Plaza
Opening ceremony: A celebratory processional down the South Bethlehem Greenway
Prometheus/Redux: The companion piece to the seminal work “Steelbound” from Touchstone’s 1999 Steel Festival
Cabaret: An “evening watering hole” with food, drinks, and conversation with performances by some of the area’s musical and performing artists
Homecoming: An afternoon gathering highlighting the African-American community in the Lehigh Valley
“Hidden Seed: Bethlehem’s Forgotten Utopia”: An original production exploring Bethlehem’s birth and how it can strengthen our future
“Starry-Eyed”: Original production created and written by high school teens about a group of misfit heroes who find themselves in Bethlehem
“The Secret”: Premiere of a play by Mock Turtle Marionette Theater on the Lehigh Valley’s most influential artist, Hilda Doolittle
“Kitchen Chronicles”: Led by Mary Wright, this performance offers a one-of-a-kind take on the powers of food and wisdom shared in the kitchen
A Joyful Noise: The Bach Choir of Bethlehem led this event in collaboration with an array of Valley choruses
FUNDING
The Festival Unbound was supported by some sixty local corporations and dozens of individual donations. The Founding contributors to the festival include:
Air Products
WDIY Radio
Northampton County General Purpose Authority
The Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts
PBS Channel 39
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
ARTS PARTNERS
Among the many arts and community groups that have been instrumental in supporting the festival are:
Moravian College- Sharon Brown
Lehigh U South Side Initiative- Seth Moglen
Bethlehem Area School District
Bethlehem Area Public Library
Mock Turtle Marionette Theater
The Bach Choir of Bethlehem
Visiting Polish company Teatr Brama
Moravian College- Christopher Shorr
Agile Rascal Bicycle Touring Theatre
Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse
Women Veterans Empowered
New York’s Pregones Theatre
Zoellner Arts Center
Shiloh Baptist Choir
The Bel Canto Choir
The Big Easy Brass Band
