Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Revolutionizing · Modernizing · Simplifying
Somebody spent months buying up old tents. Then tearing them apart. Then sewing them back together into a giant inflatable sea slug that lights up and walks down the street.
That is not a metaphor. That is a real thing happening in Breckenridge right now, and if you want to see it, you have until Sunday.
The Breckenridge International Festival of Arts, BIFA for short, is running four days across the Arts District Campus in downtown Breck. It kicked off Thursday, Aug. 20, and today, Sunday the 23rd, is the last day. Admission is free. All of it. That is the part people miss when they hear the word "festival" and start bracing for a $75 wristband and a
This year the theme is "Other Worlds." The whole idea is you step through the looking glass into art, music, theatre and film that does not quite belong to this planet. And honestly, they lean all the way into it.
Here is the part I actually want you to see.
Denver artists Nicole Banowetz and Devin Reilly are back at BIFA with a piece called "On the Edge of the Cosmic Sea." It is a series of roaming inflatable sea creatures that double as glowing wearable sculptures. We are talking larger-than-life puppets. The Parchment Worm. The Copepod. The Sea Slug. Things you have to look up afterward to confirm are real animals.
Banowetz talked about how she made them, and this is the detail that stuck with me. Months of collecting tents. Tearing them down. Re-sewing the fabric into inflatable sculptures. So the thing floating past you on Main Street used to be somebody's REI two-person shelter from a Buena Vista camping trip. I love that.
And it is not just the sea creatures. Giant bluebird puppets. Inflatable aliens wandering the streets. Most of that roaming activity was built around Saturday, so if you are reading this Sunday morning, get up there early and check the schedule at the campus, because the creatures move around and you do not want to be standing on the wrong block.
There are two outdoor stages with free live music all weekend. Beats Antique is on the bill, along with a lineup of multi-instrumentalist acts that fit the whole otherworldly thing.
Now here is the stage I cannot stop thinking about. One of them is powered by pedaling. Up to 10 crowd-sourced cyclists get on bikes, and their collective effort determines and maintains the volume of the music. So if the sound dips, that is on you and nine strangers. Stop pedaling and the band gets quiet. I mean, that is either the most Colorado thing ever built or a genius way to trap people into a workout at 9,600 feet. Probably both.
BIFA gave its inaugural keynote to Pattie Gonia, the environmentalist, storyteller and drag queen. The talk is called "Nature's Strategies for Advocacy and Action" at the Riverwalk Center, and it rolls straight into a drag show and dance party afterward. A keynote that turns into a dance floor. That is the correct order of operations, if you ask me.
Breck Create partnered with Mountain Top Explorium on the "Other Worlds" exhibition, which is a set of site-specific installations from artists Hadley Hooper and Sadie Young. And a mobile art display called BIRDS is making its Colorado debut here during the festival. So there is plenty to walk into and stand inside, not just watch go by.
The whole thing is built for a walkable town, which Breck absolutely is. Park once and you can hit the stages, the installations and the roaming creatures on foot.
Side note, and this is your bonus if you drive up. The Breckenridge Troll is up there year-round. His name is Isak Heartstone, he is a massive sculpture made from recycled materials by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, and he lives on the Trollstigen Trail near town. So you can catch tent-fabric sea slugs downtown and a giant recycled troll in the woods on the same afternoon. That is a strong day.
Look, I cannot write about Breck without saying it. This is one of the most expensive mountain markets in Colorado, and free is not a word you hear a lot up here. A four-day international arts festival that costs you nothing but gas and parking is genuinely rare in a town where a night out adds up fast. Weekends like this are also exactly what people are buying into when they chase a place in Summit County. The town works hard to be more than a lift ticket, and BIFA is the proof.
Parker Yamasaki previewed the festival in The Colorado Sun on Aug. 20, and 9NEWS covered the kickoff, so this is not some quiet thing nobody knows about. But Sunday is the last day. The tent monsters go back in storage after this.
Drive up 70, get to the Arts District Campus, and go find the Sea Slug before it deflates for another year.