Annual Lorefest To Celebrate Storytelling Over Five Nights Of Events And Performances
Five nights of spooky folklore, performances, games, cuisine and research will highlight the second-annual Lorefest, a multidisciplinary event featuring students and faculty across the Texas A&M College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. The free event is Tuesday through Saturday.
Lorefest was created by Performance and Visual Studies instructors Dr. Matthew Campbell, associate program director, and Dr. Will Connor, lecturer. Faculty and students in that program will be joined by those in Visualization, Theatre, Dance Science and Music Performance to present projects that include a wrestling match, a concert and a retelling of “War of the Worlds” that brings an alien invasion to Bryan-College Station.
“We brought on at least nine additional classes for this year’s Lorefest with student and faculty participation in performance, video games, a radio play, to creating a cocktail menu at the Grand Stafford Theater,” Campbell said. “And that kind of expansion is exactly what I was hoping for — particularly in the space of giving students an opportunity to contribute to Bryan-College Station’s local folklore.”
Campbell curated a list of about 90 folklore tales for students to research for the event. Some are native to Texas, while others come from Mexico, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Columbia, Bolivia, Thailand and Japan.
“The goal was to represent the multicultural backyard that is Texas and beyond through storytelling,” Campbell said. “The students had an opportunity to choose from the curated list. And we asked them to interview two members of their own family, from two different generations, and collect their own stories.”
Campbell said he is eager to showcase student and faculty work through storytelling.
“I hope to engender a respect for the narratives that are driven by folkloric transmission by finding a way to creatively engage with students and give them the opportunity to create moments for a live audience,” he said. “And being able to do this through a community-based arts festival is just a dream come true.”
Day One: Folklore Wrestling Match
Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the courtyard of the Liberal Arts and Arts and Humanities Building.
Students from Performance and World Cultures classes will perform their folklore tales through eight wrestling matches, featuring wrestlers from the Bryan-based Lions Pride Sports Professional Wrestling. Each student group created a backstory for a wrestler, which included designing a costume, selecting an introduction song and filming promotional videos that will play on a screen in the courtyard.
Houston Carson, founder and CEO of Lions Pride, and his wrestlers will perform with students in a full-size wrestling ring. Students who enter the ring completed a three-night intensive training session with Carson.
“There will be more new wrestlers in the ring than you typically see in a normal match,” Campbell said. “And we are taking everything cautiously and safely, and will have medical staff on hand.”
Day Two: ‘Haunted Japan’
Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Rudder Forum. Admission is free but is a ticket is required, available on the MSC Box Office website.
Dr. Martin Regan, professor in the new Music Performance program, invited traditional Japanese artist Yoko Hiraoka to present tales of Japanese folklore. Through narration and song, Hiraoka will play a five-stringed lute known as the chikuzen-biwa, a traditional Japanese instrument. Hiraoka also performed a storytelling concert last year for the college.
Day Three: Audio Drama and Drinks
Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Grand Stafford Theater, 106 S. Main St. in Bryan.
To kick off the night, six student groups from Performance and World Cultures classes will deliver their own audio dramas based on folklore tales in a mock podcast performance.
Dr. Michelle Simms, lecturer in Performance and Visual Studies, will debut a radio play titled “War of the Aggie Worlds,” which puts a local spin on H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds.” The original story’s lore grew through Orson Welles’ 1939 radio broadcast that presented the alien invasion as breaking news.
In Simms’ retelling, the alien invasion takes place in Bryan-College Station.
“In ‘War of the Aggie Worlds,’ a Martian invasion of campus interrupts the Bolton Hall radio broadcast of the fall dance,” Simms said. “The 12th Man and their dates must rise up to win the battle.”
Students in Acting Fundamentals courses taught by Anne Quackenbush, assistant professor of practice in the Theatre program, will perform “War of the Aggie Worlds,” with music accompaniment from Connor’s Sonic Design students. Students in Simms’ Story for Audio Media course will produce the show.
“It’s always a thrill to see your creative work come to life, but I’m even more excited by the growth of all of the students involved,” Simms said. “It has been incredible to watch these students on their artistic journeys as they tackle this challenge.”
Students in Performance and Visual Studies courses also crafted recipes for cocktails inspired by folklore tales. The Grand Stafford bar will offer these drinks, including non-alcoholic versions.
Instructors from the Department of Communication and Journalism, Jonathan Guajardo and Dr. joey lopez — who prefers the lowercase version of his name — will host an “Aggieland Folklore Podcast” to discuss secret societies that formed on the A&M campus in the late 19th century. A dungeon synth band will close out the night with a performance.
Day Four: First Friday Celebration
Friday starting at 7 p.m. in and around the Parker-Astin arts center, 110 N. Bryan Ave. in Downtown Bryan.
The “Lorefest Halloween Spectacle” will take place outside Parker-Astin with Victoria Snaith, founder and creative director of Dread Falls Theatre, based in the United Kingdom. Snaith will lead a “cleansing ritual” of the space. Performance and Visual Studies students will debut walk-about puppets they created based on folklore tales. Snaith also helped students create puppets during last year’s Lorefest.
A banquet featuring cuisine inspired by students’ folklore tales will be showcased inside Parker-Astin.
An augmented reality, immersive escape room performance titled “The Ghostly Feather” will be in Parker-Astin. Created by Campbell, Quackenbush and Dr. Edgar Rojas-Muñoz, assistant professor in Visualization, the performance will include audience members wearing augmented reality goggles to experience virtual holograms and audio soundscapes as they gather clues and ask questions surrounding the folktale “La Lechuza.”
“The setting is 1924, in a family-owned distillery in Bryan,” Quackenbush said. “There has been a murder that the audience must solve to appease La Lechuza. Together, AR effects and live performers tell a story that comes to life and offers the audience dynamic choices that lead to exciting alternate endings.”
“It Devours” is a devised theatre performance that will happen outside Parker-Astin, featuring John Cartwright, lecturer in Dance Science; Riti Sachdeva, instructional assistant professor in Theatre; Dr. Michael Poblete, instructional assistant professor in Theatre; and Dr. Anna Holman, instructional assistant professor in Performance and Visual Studies. Dr. Grace Adinku, lecturer in Performance and Visual Studies, designed and constructed costumes for the show. Also contributing are Kat Rothman, a devised theatre artist, and Sam Payne, a Master of Arts student in Performance Studies.
Video games and role-playing games will be featured in Parker-Astin. The “Lorefest Arcade” features folklore games created by game design students instructed by Mason Smith, instructional assistant professor in Visualization. “Lorefest Role-Playing Games” were created by Visualization students taught by Dr. Daniil Leiderman, instructional associate professor.
A “Ghost Walk” featuring Performance and Visual Studies students will be held outside the Carnegie History Center, led by Dr. Kathy Torabi, instructional associate professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Day Five: Research Symposium And ‘ABYSS’
Saturday: Symposium from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Room 453 of the Liberal Arts and Arts and Humanities Building. The closing performance by slowdanger titled “ABYSS” is at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theater. Admission is free but a ticket is required, available on the MSC Box Office website.
The symposium will feature keynote speaker Dr. Sandy Stone, a professor emerita of communication at the Department of Radio, Television and Film at the University of Texas. Faculty and students from other universities will also present papers on folklore-themed topics.
At 7 p.m., the performance duo slowdanger will perform “ABYSS,” based on the folklore tale of “the Goatman.” The multidisciplinary artists taylor knight and anna thompson — who prefer the lowercase version of their names — were selected for the college’s inaugural New Work Development Artist Residency.
The artists based the performance on an interview with knight’s father, who recalled hearing stories of the Goatman while growing up in the 1970s in Cedar Hill. The performance will also feature a mask created by Emily Bujnoch, instructional assistant professor in Visualization.
Top photo: At Lorefest 2023, Ethan Campbell, left, holds the “Owl-Lady” puppet he created with his team members. Photo by Rachel Hitt/Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications.
