OPEN / "Bring Yourself" Arts & Culture event!

[enveloped]

who: Cameron Waltz and you!
what: "Bring Yourself" Arts & Culture event!
when: Today!
where: Riverside Community Centre.
warnings: None predicted.

Open invitation on the network!


The community center is normally a modest building, albeit one with a spectacular riverfront view. Tonight, it's putting on the ritz. Multicolored lanterns hang on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the front of the building, and music of all kinds, depending on what time it is, pours out of the open doors and into the street. Local vendors have set up small carts to show off their wares and offer small trinkets and fresh food for sale, displaying their local pride.

Inside, things have been completely redecorated for the event. It's a modern open concept gallery, with blank walls for artwork and written word, empty pedestals to display objects, and plenty of tables with chairs. Some pieces are already on display, from paintings to exotic foods. Small crowds gather around people telling stories or showing off their special skills and talents.

That music plays live from the small main stage overlooking a dance floor, both of which can be cleared for demonstrations of everything from dance to martial arts. Anything physical that requires that little bit of extra room.

Musicians are free to write their names for a time-slot on the stage, and can choose to be accompanied by the onsite pianist and guitarist, bring their own instruments or backup, or perform solo.

All throughout the room are food and drink stations, where staff serves wine, beer, limited spirits, and soft drinks. The exotic foods are on display here, from which the guests can help themselves. If you can imagine it, someone has managed to cook it.
At the far end of the building is an outdoor patio overlooking the river, with seating and torches to light the area through the night. Most displays of magic take place out there, where practitioners can go all-out casting their most extravagant spells.

The crowd ebbs and flows, gathering to socialize during lulls and splitting off to see new events and installations as they come in. Other than opening and closing statements by Cameron Waltz, there's very little structure.

Casual and relaxed, the focus is on learning, generating conversation, and meeting new people. It's an organized free-for-all, a mini festival dedicated to the celebration of the cultures and backgrounds of everyone in Riverview. And in a city made up of a thousand universes worth of people, there's more than enough to see.

[Characters can bring pieces with them as they arrive, and simply set themselves up around the room. Contributions aren't limited to art, anything goes! Feel free to play random observer/staff/performer NPCs. The party goes until midnight, have fun!]

Comments

[pacifisticuffs]

"Very much so, actually." He'd thought the event might fall under the umbrella of "quaint, but well-meant," but he can't deny Waltz has put on a good show and that the majority of exhibitors are legitimately talented. "And you? Have you strayed far from your own exhibition?"

[bestsir]

"Enough to see what others have brought. I had not thought the community had so many with one such talent or another; it's very pleasant to see. And, in some cases, to hear." Some of the music has honestly not been to his own taste at all, but he can understand the appeal to others.

[pacifisticuffs]

"Not in all cases?" Simon is teasing, of course. While some of the piano pieces have been very nice, the more punk the music, the less fond he finds himself. Talent is talent, but that doesn't mean he always has to love how it's expressed.

[bestsir]

"Some of it is ... very loud," he concedes diplomatically, but with a flicker of a surprisingly mischievous smile.

[pacifisticuffs]

Well hello. There's a sense of humor beneath those mutton chops. Simon toasts him with his (third?) drink of the evening. "If you haven't yet experienced it, I highly suggest you try a sampling of deathmetal. You will lose all hope for the future of music."

[bestsir]

"Death ... metal?" Those are two words that are English and that he knows, but which make absolutely no sense to him paired like that. He's imagining people clanging swords and knives together. "I'm afraid to ask further."

[pacifisticuffs]

Simon chuckles softly.

"There's a great deal of debatably artistic screaming involved."

[bestsir]

"De gustibus non est disputandum, as the saying goes," Harry says wryly. "What sort of music do you prefer?"

[pacifisticuffs]

Simon chuckles, then considers Harry's question. "Jazz, of various kinds. Classical, of course." Of course. "But jazz first and foremost."

He pauses. "I don't suppose that genre existed when you're from. Have you any familiarity now?"

[bestsir]

"Only a little." There's the occasional jazz trio or quartet that plays at some of the coffee houses that Harry frequents. "But I can see the appeal. It reminds me in some ways of the songs that the sailors would play aboard ship of a night."

[pacifisticuffs]

God, the stories this man could probably tell. Simon's not going to ask, not now and perhaps not ever, because he knows whatever the stories might be they will not have happy endings, and everything he's seen from this man so far tells him that Harry deserves better than an unhappy ending.

No, that belongs to a special class of people, or it should. Criminals and sin eaters or, in his own case, both.

"That's not a connection I would have made, but it seems a fitting one in retrospect." Simon's eyes flick to one of the drawings, letting him look away from this man who died somewhere out there in the cold and pull himself back from the ugly cruelty of it. When he looks back, it's with a bright smile and a cheerful gaze. "Have you ventured away from your exhibit to study the others at all?"

[bestsir]

"Only a little. Is there something in particular you'd recommend?"

He quite catch that flicker of unease from Simon. The man covers for himself well.