Whether you're a regular at Arts First or you've yet to attend, you can experience the event's highlights on-line thanks to Harvard@Home.
Arts First offers audio and video coverage of the University-wide celebration of music, theater, dance, and visual arts. The annual spring event features more than 200 student performances in venues ranging from Sanders Theatre to Harvard Yard, from undergraduate Houses to the University museums.
Harvard@Home's 60-minute program offers excerpts from past performances by the Harvard-Radcliffe Ballet Company, the Harvard Juggling Club, the On Thin Ice improvisational comedy troupe, the Harvard Glee Club, and the Vox Jazz vocal ensemble, among others. In other clips, students perform Roma (Gypsy) songs, Indian classical dance, Scottish fiddle music, and more.
Arts First also features an excerpt from an on-stage conversation between actor John Lithgow '67, the force behind the festival, and international filmmaker Mira Nair '79. Nair, whose works include Monsoon Wedding, Salaam Bombay, and Mississippi Masala, received the ninth annual Harvard Arts Medal at the 2003 festival. Included on the video as well is Who's That Banging on the Piano? a 1979 documentary describing the origins of the Council for the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe.
Arts First is available in RealPlayer, QuickTime, and Windows Media formats at https://athome.harvard.edu/dh/haf.html.
Harvard@Home provides desktop access to lectures, speeches, presentations, performances, and other University events. The Web-based project offers more than 30 edited programs on topics in the arts, the sciences, current affairs, history, literature, and math. Programs, which range from 10 minutes to three hours long, are free and available to the public. For more information, visit https://athome.harvard.edu.
