A celebration of creativity

Sweet Pea Festival of the Arts

By Lucia Stewart, 8-03-07

It’s Sweet Pea Festival time again, a gala we look forward to every year.

When you scroll down BozemanEvent.net, it becomes overwhelming how many activities are happening at the 30th annual Sweet Pea Festival of the Arts — more than 45 different theatrical, musical and dance performances are listed over three days.

And this doesn’t include the Tater Pigs and other delectables that we look forward to every year served by local non-profits. And perusing the arts & crafts vendors tucked under the trees of the rolling green Lindley Park.

This truly is a homegrown festival that started in 1978 by a group of dedicated Bozemanites to stage a “celebration of creativity.” Over 20,000 people attend Sweet Pea festival, which is almost half the population of Bozeman alone. It’s an annual pilgrimage for folks returning to Bozeman where they once called home, tourists visiting or an ideal time to invite the parents for a visit.

Here are just a few of the creative highlights of the Sweet Pea weekend:

Saturday, 12pm, Sunday 12 & 2pm
Storytelling w/Magical Mask, Mime, & Music, Kuniko Yamamoto, a Japanese native, will perform a combination of storytelling, song, original masks, origami, highly-stylized movements and just a touch of magic based on heartfelt folktales from Japan.

Saturday 4:30pm
Every wanted to ballroom dance in the open breeze? Lauren Coleman’s Have Fun Dancing will be onsite hosting ballroom and Latin Dancing at Cypress Point.

Saturday 8:00pm
Fleet-fingered and muddy-booted, The Waybacks can play like nobody’s business. From newgrass and western swing to jug band and gypsy jazz, from folk and fingerpicking to alt-country and improvisational excursions that defy categorization, The Waybacks music is wild, energetic and unpredictable. At full tilt, they take on the force of an acoustic rock band. With their stellar musicianship and innate sense of adventure, they stand in good company with the few bands at the forefront of New American acoustic music.

Sunday 2pm
Local playwright Stephanie Saline will showcase three of her own original one-act plays that will take the audience on wild and hilarious rides into the oval office with the President’s housekeepers and through the line at airport security. This is something not to miss, a true highlight of local creativity.

For more details, be sure to checkout BozemanEvents.Net. See you there!

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