Performances Galore
Art for all the senses: A guide to the Bayou City Art Festival
- Expect downtown to be full of art lovers this weekend.
- There are ton of events for kids at the Bayou City Art Festival.
- Kreg Yingst, featured artist
- Artwork by Kreg Yingst
- The downtown Bayou City Art Festival has art in myrid mediums.
With 300 artists showing off wares in 19 media from jewelry to sculpture to leather goods to photography and paintings, there's no bad time to stop by the biannual Bayou City Art Festival, taking shape Saturday and Sunday over several blocks of downtown.
Plus with culinary and wine treats, featured visual and musical performers, activities for kids and Houston's pitch-perfect fall weather, there are plenty of reasons to check out the BCAF — even if you plan to head home empty-handed.
Don't miss performances by Wise Fool New Mexico, a spectacular troupe of aerial acrobats that combine theater, dancing, flying and stilt work. They'll be on the Flexion Stage behind city hall, performance at 1, 3, and 5 p.m. on Saturday and at 12, 3 and 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Other performances throughout the weekend include Mariachi MECA (Saturday at noon), the smooth vocals of Kristine Mills (Saturday at 3 p.m.), contemporary dancers CORE Performance Company (Saturday & Sunday at 2:45 p.m.), Kuumba House Dance (Sunday at 1 p.m.), the Trade Jazz Band (Sunday at 5 p.m.), and many more.
The Gexa Creative Energy Zone features myriad ways to immerse kids in art, including folding normal paper into floating lotuses, creating twisted wire sculptures, making and developing sun photos, creating mini-piñatas and wax hand sculptures and designing mosaic frames. Best of all? It's all included with admission — and for kids under 12, admission is free.
The Epicurean Adventure and Wine Bar features vino varietals from the United States, Chile, Italy and Argentina, plus wine seminars and chef demonstrations, all for a $10 donation to SNAP.
Foodies can also check out the Healthy Food Fight, with celeb chef judge Sara Moulton selecting the best healthy dish from a live, on-site cook-off between the best three local chefs who submitted recipes online. The winner of the food fight moves on to compete nationally for chef Bobby Flay and could win $10,000 in kitchen appliances.
Via Colori street artists Cat Cavouti, Lily Alonso, Allen Zelante and Grace Hunter will be creating six-foot-by-six-foot-works of street art at one of the four festival entrances, transforming asphalt into art.
The artist tent will feature three artists working live in three different mediums — Kay Nguyen in sculpture, Lovie Olivia Art and Design creating a visual, mixed media piece, and Nameless Sound performing and creating music.
Editor's note: When you're downtown at the Bayou City Art Festival, you can keep track of everything you need to know on your phone with CultureMap's mobile guide to the BCAF. The guide has information on everything from where to park to the schedule of live performances to descriptions of the artists and their work.
A new feature this year finds a Quick Response Code (think grocery store bar code) on the front of every artist's booth, allowing you to scan the code with your smartphone and instantly call up information on that particular artist's work and background. If you're unfamiliar with QRCs, just download a free app like NeoReader to read the QRC in seconds.
To get started with the mobile guide, you only have to type www.culturemap.com/bcaf into any phone with a Web browser.