The 40th Ithaca Festival will be “Mixing It Up” this year from June 3 to 5 with new artists, a new stage location, and a new time for the Ithaca Festival parade.
In a change from previous years, the parade steps off at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, June 3, from Cayuga and Lewis streets with Mayor Svante Myrick, Sheriff Ken Lansing, and IPD Chief John Barber leading the charge and the Ithaca Fire Department closing it out, with dancers, dancing Volvos, musicians, and all your favorite marchers in between.
Festival artist Rahmel Mack used the idea of the pinwheel for this year’s festival art, because when you spin a pinwheel “the four elements make one solid element.”
“I thought about what would make an awesome festival in Ithaca,” Mack said, “and it’s love, the diverse people, music, art of all kinds—painting, drawing, sculpture, glass, dance. I wanted to show love to every culture that represents Ithaca for it to truly be a good festival, a mixed-up festival that has a mixed batch of people. And there has to be love, because without love there’s no fun.”
Mack called on longtime collaborator Jay Stooks, the 2014 Ithaca Festival artist, to create the background for this year’s art.
“I always liked his perspective of how he sees Ithaca, when you look at the library mural,” Mack said of Stooks, “and I wanted that style in the background.”
Mack and Stooks, as Ave Mack and Cz Nutz will be playing with Izzy B as Empire Kings on Sunday evening at 5:40 p.m. at the stage in Markles Flats on Court Street across from the Greater Ithaca Activities Center (GIAC), with The Gunpoets closing out that evening there. The new stage will be accompanied by a beer garden on Court Street, featuring Ithaca Beer brews and Six Mile Creek wines.
“I’m pretty hyped about it,” Mack said of the new festival footprint. “I think it’ll be interesting to get that feel of Stewart Park, more of a loose feel. You can get that feeling of grass and carefreeness on Sunday.”
The 2016 GIAC Festival will be mixing it up with the Ithaca Festival, with talent shows, interactive art spaces, and kid-friendly acts like The Nate and Kate Kids Show (11 a.m. Sunday) playing in the Markles Flat park. Pony rides will also be available on Court Street, along with a kids’ area in the GIAC playground. On Saturday night, Mosaic Foundation (4:50 p.m.) and The Sim Redmond Band (6:15 p.m.) will be closing out a full day of music in Markles Flats.
The Ithaca Festival will also have full use of downtown for the first time since the Commons reconstruction began in 2013. When you end up down at the Bernie Milton pavilion on the Commons on Friday eve after the parade, and The Horse Flies will be playing a set at 8:30 p.m. Other Bernie Milton headliners include Driftwood, the Wassa Pan African Ensemble, and Samite on Saturday evening, with El Rumbon, New York Rock, and The Blind Spots playing there to close out Sunday evening.
A full schedule of buskers will be entertaining on the Commons all weekend, including Hilby the Skinny German Juggle Boy, and Ithaca Community Circus on Friday and Sunday. Harpist Anna O’Connell, string band Blue Sky Mission Club and the Fall Creek Brass Band will be entertaining on Saturday eve. New Roots Spoken Word & Theater and the Ithaca Gay Men’s Chorus will be there on Sunday afternoon.
Another beer garden will be in Bank Alley, where patrons of age can buy brews and drink them while catching the music, just like the Summer Concert Series.
In DeWitt Park, dancers, singers, poets, puppets, and drummers will do their thing all weekend. June & Chandani Belly Dance Troupe, a favorite of this paper, will perform at 2 p.m. on Saturday, but swing or waltz or samba by at any hour for your words, music, and rhythm fix starting at 4 p.m. on Friday with an African dance and drum workshop through Sunday evening, when the Ithaca Community Sing starts at 6 p.m.
For comedy fans, at Cinemapolis, there’s a Comedy on the Commons show on Saturday at 4 p.m. and the Cosmic Joke Collective will be at Lot 10 on Saturday from 7 p.m.
Check out the parking lot next to Press Bay Alley on Saturday, where Ithaca Underground will have an all-day lineup fuzzing and slamming and rapping and math rocking.
Craft vendors will be set up on Cayuga Street, and food vendors will be on State Street between Cayuga and Geneva all weekend. •
See ithacafestival.org or get the mobile app at m.ithacafestival.org.
