Arts & Culture
Everything, everywhere, all at once (kind of)

A Human-AI Affair in the atrium of Harvard’s Science and Engineering Complex. Models Chris Gumb and Peggy Yin pose in outfits designed by Helen Haitong Huang and Xiaowu Zheng during the fashion show, which aims to showcase the potential within human-AI collaboration. Designers were encouraged to use materials that reflect global sustainability.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

Eileen O'Grady

Harvard Staff Writer

April 30, 2024 4 min read

There’s never a shortage of creativity on campus. But during Arts First, it all comes out to play.

The 2024 Arts First Festival brought campus concert halls, galleries, and common areas to life for an exuberant five-day celebration of student, faculty, and staff creativity. The annual festival, produced by the Office for the Arts, showcases art in all its mediums and genres, with an array of music and theater performances, public exhibits, and hands-on activities.

In Paine Hall on Saturday, seniors Lucas Gazianis and Joshua Fang faced off in a “piano duel,” exchanging jazz licks from side-by-side pianos.

Gazianis, who had played with the Harvard Jazz Orchestra the night before, said he likes to keep one foot in the music world even while being a social studies concentrator. He likes the feeling the festival brings each year.

“I’m just walking around the Yard and the Science Center Plaza enjoying lots of different great music,” Gazianis said. “I feel great; it’s beautiful outside. There are so many talented students doing such different things.”

Students from Matt Aucoin’s class Music 187: Opera Workshop perform their creations in Holden Chapel. Olympia Hatzilambrou ’24 is pictured during the performance.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Andrew Lu ’24 (left) and Caitlin Paul ’24 sing their opera roles.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Danilo “Dacha” Thurber ’25 (left) is shown with Aucoin.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

The event, which ended April 28, also featured a four-show run of “Little Shop of Horrors,” performed by the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, a human-AI collaborative fashion show, and an ensemble of four cellists performing a Disney song medley.

At Thursday night’s drag show, nationally acclaimed performer Pattie Gonia led a high-energy evening of performances by students, and on Wednesday night, Kevin Young ’92 was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal

Taylor Fang ’25, Arts First’s student producer and student poet, participated in the Arts Medal ceremony, asking Young about the role of memory in his work during the Q&A session.

Fang, an English concentrator with a secondary in computer science, said she likes the sense of community the festival creates on campus.

“The fact that there’s so many different mediums means that there’s all these different ways of engaging,” Fang said. “I don’t think there’s only a unifying aspect to art, I also think it allows us to have different perspectives and opinions. Through art we can have a more open-minded and understanding dialogue since it’s not coming at issues head-on, but through other ways of expression.”

Malgorzata (Gosia) Sklodowska (pictured) poses in their outfit at Fashion Flare.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

A close up shows the details of a jacket from the fashion show.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

A public art installation called “In Bloom” by Abby Weber ’26 was this pedestrian’s backdrop. It was displayed along the gates of Harvard Yard.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

A detail of the public art installation “Oyster Floats, Camera Obscuras for a Floating City” by Graduate School of Design students Randy Crandon and Dylan Herrmann-Holt is shown alongside Memorial Hall.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Members of the Black Arts Collective create a mural highlighting the essence of jazz and celebrating underrepresented voices in the genre. Alyssa Gaines ’26 paints the mural on the Science Center Plaza.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

An art installation called “Home on the Yard” by GSD students Christian Behling, Ihwa Choi, Monica Mendoza, and Gabriel Schmid is exhibited in Harvard Yard.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Members of the cast from “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” perform.

Photo by Scott Eisen

Graduate School of Education student Amy Dang works on a drawing of a specimen at the “Sketch Up Close” tent on Science Center Plaza.

Photo by Scott Eisen

James Glaser ’25 helps run the pottery wheel on Science Center Plaza.

Photo by Scott Eisen

Dancers from the Harvard Ballet Company perform.

Photo by Scott Eisen

Members of Te Tango Bailando dance.

Photo by Scott Eisen

Anugraha Raman ’12 performs.

Photo by Scott Eisen

The Crimson Cellos play a Disney medley in the Harvard Art Museums’ Calderwood Courtyard.

Photo by Scott Eisen

Looking down on the Crimson Cellos as they play a Disney medley.

Photo by Scott Eisen