In Homer, April is the month of Jubilee, a festival for Homer’s youth spring arts in all forms. This year, and all this month, Homer Council on the Arts is hosting the visual component in their gallery. This event opened on First Friday. The second community event is for performing arts and the director for this year’s show is KIrsten Swanson who grew up in Homer.
Jubilee! has been celebrated in Homer since the mid-1980’s. Diane Borgman institutionalized the spring performance as primary director for a long time, but even before her leadership, the process of it started with a group of dancers in the 1980’s. Long-time dance instructor Jill Berryman shared that before establishing the Homer Council on the Arts the community had a small concert association that eventually chose to set up a spring arts festival to have an entire month of events at one time. This is what eventually turned into the larger and current version of Jubilee–with both the visual arts and performance components.
Swanson shared some of her background in Homer and the arts:
“I kind of grew up in the arts. My mom was my first music teacher. Then I was privileged enough that when we moved to Homer, we actually had Atz Kilcher out at McNeil. So, I grew up learning in a public school setting, folk songs from a local artist and that neat ability to kind of marry all types of art in Homer and cross the different boundaries of society, has always been a part of my musical journey.,” she said.
Swanson has been involved in musical performances for cruise lines and Cirque du Soleil in California and musical education in Colorado and now teaches at Homer’s Harbor School. Many of the students in this year’s Jubilee are also Harbor School students, Swanson said.
“I am so excited for Jubilee. I can't wait for the kids to show off, because, especially as a director, I don't have to do anything except make sure that quick changes aren't happening and that, you know, makeup hits the light right, and that they sound good in this in the theater space, but they're the artists that are actually performing, and they sound really good this year. The quality of this performance is going to be really great,” Swanson said.
This year’s two act performance will be held on the Mariner Stage, Friday, April 10th starting at 7 PM. Admission is $10 for Youth and $20 for general admission. There will be 11 solo performers and four groups of dancers and singers. The youngest performers are 9 and the oldest are 18.
Two Homer seniors, Dayus Geysbeek and Madison Jones, shared some of their experiences related to Homer arts and what they’ll be presenting at this year’s Jubilee.
“My name is Dayus Anthony Geysbeek. For Jubilee, I'm going to be playing a song, "In my Life," by the Beatles with my band Madeline Moore and Salem Geysbeek (my brother). Maddie is my cousin, so it's, you know, a little bit of a family band, but it's really fun. My favorite part of Jubilee, personally, is seeing everyone do their own thing, because it's just like a really big variety of talent and it's really fun to see.”
Jones said she plans to be in Homer this summer and will look at various music and theater options. She also said she’ll continue with community theater and music in the future post-graduation.
All proceeds from the Friday performance will support Homer Council on the Arts’ Ron Senungetuk Summer Youth Scholarship Fund. These scholarships are for Homer-area students currently enrolled in grades 6 through 11 to be used on intensive artistic endeavors during the summer months- either summer art programs or private lessons from local teachers. More information on the scholarship program is available on the HCOA website (homerart.org) and applications are due on April 30th.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
