The Atlanta Journal Constitution Decatur Book Festival is committing to the performing and visual arts in a big way this year with the art/DBF component.
Nearly three dozen arts organizations, including a select group of individual artists, will dance, take photographs, sing and perform skits, all as a part of the Labor Day weekend festival. Julie Delliquanti, coordinator of art/DBF and head of public programs and community engagement at the High Museum of Art, spoke about what to expect.
Q: The festival is pretty robust as it is, so why the expansion into the performing and visual arts?
A: What the book festival is really about is ideas, storytelling, creating characters and inspiring people and encouraging them to use their imaginations. That's what the arts do, just off of the page. They are talking about ideas, creating imaginary places, commenting on the world in very much the same way that authors are. It just seemed like a natural fit, a next step in the direction of the festival.
Q: Would you characterize this as a reboot of the festival?
A: The DBF folks are interested in finding ways to keep the festival relevant and fresh. I think we all understand that what the book looks like today is not what the book looked like 10 years ago. The e-book is huge now, so the physical book looks different. I think they are responding to that, the way that stories are being put out in the world. And it's acknowledging that Atlanta is full of creative people and a lot of them are writers. But a lot of them are art makers in other forms.
Q: It’s hard enough to pick an author to see during the festival. Now you add the layer of arts on top of that, so what’s your advice on how to choose what to see?
A: What the arts component is doing is giving folks an opportunity to pop back and forth between literary events and arts events. And it gives people an opportunity to test-drive some of these arts organizations they've heard of but never gone to a performance of. You can be passive and walk through the pavilion and get some printed material about different arts organizations or you can go watch a pop-up performance on the plaza or you can go to one of the venues and actually commit to 15 or 20 minutes or 40 minutes.
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