The Lotus Education & Arts Foundation will present the 31st annual Lotus World Music and Arts Festival on October 3-6 in downtown Bloomington. There will be four venues: the Fourth Street outdoor venue, the John Waldron Art Center, the Buskirk-Chumley Theater and the First Christian Church. The festival starts with a performance at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Buskirk-Chumley and ends with a performance at 4:15 p.m. Sunday back at the Buskirk-Chumley.
Festival-goers can expect to see 20 musical artists who will be representing almost 20 different nationalities or musical styles.
One group in this year's lineup is Forgotten Tribe, consisting of members Khiry Jurrell, Omar Aguilera, General Spazz, Ray Sarmiento and Angel "Ocho" Ochoa.
This will be the band’s second time performing at the Lotus Festival. Jurrell, the band’s lead vocalist, said they had a great experience performing the first time, extending gratitude to the Lotus Festival and to the Bloomington community for coming out.
“We really are looking forward to just giving Bloomington and the Lotus Fest our music,” Jurrell said. “It's always dope to be able to travel and go to a place and play your original music for a new audience.”
Katarina Koch is executive director at the Lotus Education & Arts Foundation. Koch is one of the many people who works behind the scenes to book the artist lineup.
“It's really a very involved and curated process to pick artists,” Koch said.
Lotus’ founder Lee Williams started a Midwest Consortium of booking agents, which is essential for booking artists when Lotus attends events like the Worldwide Music Expo.
“Artists from all over the world come to perform and showcase themselves to booking agents, music industry folks, and producers or presenters like Lotus,” Koch said. “We go see all of these artists, and we're able to be exposed to what's out in this world and in this industry.”
The Lotus Festival has partnered with The Chocolate Moose, along with other local vendors and food trucks who will be set up along Kirkwood Avenue during the weekend. There will also be a booth selling merchandise by the Rose Fire Bay of the John Waldron Art Center.
In addition to musical artists, the Lotus Festival will also showcase visual artist Carina Leiva. Leiva was born and raised in Costa Rica, and finds inspiration from the oceans and coasts.
“I’ve always believed that art should be taken to people, and should be something that’s accessible,” Leiva said. “I thought that my art should bring some content about taking care of these treasures that we have with nature. I started to create my art based on coral reefs and I use mostly recycled materials as much as I can, especially textiles.”
Leiva’s current project uses fabric scrap donations from the community. With the help of volunteers, she will teach a textile workshop where people of all ages can create a textile coral using recycled materials.
“There's also [going to be] teaching the kids or the public how to take care of the coral reef and how these materials can be used in crafts or art projects, instead of just discarding it and then ending up harming the oceans and the environment,” Leiva said.
The Lotus Festival has also partnered with IU Cinema to show “Around The World In Four Days,” a film by local filmmaker and longtime Lotus supporter Merrill Hatlen.
Students can get a $10 discount for individual night tickets for Friday or Saturday night. Lotus also relies on student volunteers. In exchange for a 6 to 7 hour shift, volunteers get one night’s admission to the festival, as well as a free T-shirt designed by Bloomington artist Sam Bartlett and a collectible button.
“We love having students come on board,” Koch said. “Volunteering should be a bucket list thing for all students to do, anybody to do really.”
