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This is an interview with Caroline Meredith, performance producer in Gallatin Arts Festival 2020 & 2021. Caroline is a junior-year student currently based in Manhattan, New York City.
What do you study in Gallatin and how have you arrived at what you study?
I have not submitted my IAPC yet, which is wildly overdue…I’ve been saying recently on the internship applications that I have a concentration in creative and cultural criticism. I love writing, journalism, and I love writing about pop culture… I went to a performing arts high school I didn’t want to perform in college. I came to Gallatin with the idea that I love theater history. I was also really interested in politics and all the writing courses, and I’ve gotten way more interested in editorial stuff. That being said, I’m still the biggest theater fan.
The festival is coming up in about a month, what are some of the things you’re excited about?
The fact that people can still make art right now and use their time, for good and for enjoyment is very uplifting. I think we just have so much potential for what this could be. Last year, we ended right before we’re about to start the logistical planning we had scheduled day by day. I think that with GAF 2021 being a virtual festival, there’s just nothing but opportunity to create something. The world is our oyster right now, in terms of actually planning the festival…I think that we have a lot of opportunity to connect Gallatin people. We can have artists work together and get people to come and show up and talk about work in conversation with each other. I’m really excited to see what we can make of it, using the accessibility of zoom.
What would you say to people who have never been involved in our festival or have never been an audience before?
To the people who have never been an audience member before, and maybe are considering going to GAF this year, I would say it’s gonna be a great bonding experience in this moment when nothing when no one can bond in-person. This is a Gallatin specific event. The fact that you’re in Gallatin connects you with students of a very similar drive. Just tune in to the Gallatin Arts Festival for a little bit or the whole three weeks, you’ll be really impressed with the artwork that your peers create. And you can feel school pride, and hopefully you’ll feel some camaraderie before we can all get together again.
How did you get involved in Gallatin Arts Festival & How was being a producer in GAF 2020?
… I knew I wanted to be part of the Gallatin Arts Festival when I applied to NYU. Specifically, I saw that there’s a Gallatin Arts Festival. And I was like, this program is so cool, they have a complete focus on the arts. So I actually applied to be on the student leadership team in my freshman year with no experience, and just never heard back.
I’m on the performance side. Last year we had at least 40 applicants for performance applications and it took so long to get through all the applications and then we picked our people, reached out to them, and had a mixer in the Gallatin theater. We had mini cupcakes. It was so fun.
How was the process leading to the decision to cancel GAF 2020?
A couple weeks after (the mixer), the world shut down. And we had an emergency meeting about everything. I guess it’s like the meat of it. We had this meeting, during our usual time on a Wednesday, that we knew that spring break will happen…it’s crazy to think about. No one knew what was going on. Two weeks later, we had a meeting. I was at home in California at that point. In that meeting we talked about every possibility, like, can we transition to a virtual festival? Could we just create a gallery online of all of this stuff? But no one was in the place to do that much work at that point. We were all so stressed out with school and transitioning and just what was going on in the world that it wasn’t feasible. So we decided to cancel it.
How did you get involved in GAF 2021 & How has preparing for GAF 2021 been so far?
I took last semester off…but I still got some Gallatin emails, not nearly as much, but I saw the Student Leadership Team festival. I was excited to see how the festival would turn out, and see so many applicants that we’ve had last year or even accepted last year applying again. I think so many of us missed out on the festival last year just got a taste of it. Now we’re eager to experience the whole thing… I think I was like, doesn’t everyone want to be working on the Arts Festival right now? To connect, even as we’re still shut down.
In the team, every word (on the application form) is fought over, because we wanted to make the application as accessible as possible when we were going through the application and changing it for the moment. It’s just really inspiring to see that people are still submitting art. I’m feeling so lazy. I think that’s like the general mood over the last year just like it’s so difficult to complete tasks.
How do you think getting involved in GAF influence or add to your experience in Gallatin?
… I think that I’ve gotten a way better understanding of how you can connect your education with art, and what that looks like in different mediums, and the way that students always tie courses they’re taking or things they’ve learned, to the product they’re making. Some of the most impressive projects we receive are the ones with such an intellectual backbone. …and I definitely use GAF heavily in my resume. Because it’s working with a team to plan something, literally. There’s so much collaboration and talk this year…Also I think that having the meetings and reading through the applications just made me excited to go see stuff again. I missed being an audience number.
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