Arts rising: Festivals of the ’60s

In the 1960s — not once, but twice — students organized extraordinarily ambitious festivals that reflected a renaissance in the arts on campus and the cultural ethos of the decade.

Both festivals featured current and rising luminaries on the cutting edge of art, architecture, music, literature, theater, dance, and criticism, in extensive programs of discussions, films, workshops, performances, and exhibitions.

Festival of the Creative Arts, 1964

With the 1964 Festival of the Creative Arts, students were doing their part in the drive to build the Dana Arts Center. Chairman of the festival Harold Snedcof ’65 told the Colgate Maroon they were “seeking to disprove the cries of our critics that we are a status-seeking, do-nothing, apathetic generation.”¹ Their “anti-lecture” format placed students in direct contact with artists for spontaneous discussions about “what is currently preoccupying the mind of the creative artist” and featured an exhibition in Case Library including work by the likes of Josef Albers, Willem DeKooning, Jacques Lipchitz, and Jackson Pollock.