For one week in April, the College of Fine Arts will become an exhibition space for theater, visual art, dance, music and more as part of The Cohen New Works Festival. Classes are diverted for students to attend the largest student-produced new works festival in the country.
“The week of the festival is so exhilarating to just walk around and see every space transformed,” says Erica “EG” Gionfriddo, co-head of the dance program and one of the festival’s faculty producers. “There’s a different buzzing and energy in the building, and it’s like a dream to just show up to work and go watch art all day.”
The festival, scheduled this year for April 7-11, is held biennially and is free for all, but attendees do have to reserve seats. A committee of graduate and undergraduate students builds the festival from the ground up with the support of faculty producers who serve as mentors and advisers. It began in 2001 as a tribute to University of Texas playwright and professor David Mark Cohen, who championed new work before his death in 1997. The festival has evolved from a focus on plays and theater to a sprawling celebration of all kinds of student-created art, with nearly 40 projects on display this year.
“One of the beautiful things about the festival is how emergent it is,” says Lily Odekirk, the graduate student artistic producer for the festival. “The work really has the space and the resources to grow and for artists to take risks and try different things over the course of the semester.”
When students apply to the festival, they often have an idea and a plan for art that hasn’t been created yet.
“Maybe they have been in their head dreaming of a dance piece that includes dancing in the fountain outside of the Winship building, and they propose a plan on how they’re going to execute it,” Gionfriddo says. “Or maybe they’ve been working on a play, and it’s only ever been written on the page. They’ve never heard the words come out of someone’s mouth before.”
Pat Shaw, head of the Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance and festival faculty producer, says students are encouraged to take risks both by pushing the limits of their own knowledge and ability and by experimenting with their art form.
“The value of this for me is to show our students that we trust them and we believe in their visions,” Shaw says. “They have to be courageous. They have to try things that they’re not sure is going to work.”
Rusty Cloyes, director of production, co-head of the UT Live Design and Production area and a faculty producer, says the work at the festival helps faculty and staff understand what is important to students.
“It teaches us how they’re thinking or how they want to interact with art,” Cloyes says. “It’s important that we as a department put money and resources and time behind the student work and say, ‘This is important to us.’”
Although the festival is college-wide, it is housed in Theatre and Dance, and most of the works have typically come from within the department. Odekirk says that this year she and other student producers wanted a greater focus on platforming disciplines from across the College of Fine Arts, from music to visual arts, and supporting interdisciplinary collaborations with students elsewhere at the University.
“A big part of having it every two years is that it gives the students agency to create the process that speaks to their community, of how they’re going to produce and what they’re going to produce,” Shaw says. “That’s a risk, to give a big budget and remove institutional memory or weaken institutional memory for a group. The result is students are empowered to innovate and to remake it and make it theirs.”
“Falling Into Structured Meaninglessness” (2023). Photo by Thomas Allison, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
The festival typically features many works of theater and dance, such as “ZAZ: The Big Easy”(2023). Photo by Thomas Allison, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
“The Pool” was an interactive installation created for the 2019 festival. Photo by Lawrence Peart, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
Organizers want to make sure they represent students from throughout the College of Fine Arts. Photo by Thomas Allison, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
During the 2023 festival, “[untitled memory project]” combined music and movement during a live event. Photo by Thomas Allison, courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin
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