The only fine arts festival in the state, UL Lafayette’s Festival of the Arts, begins today. The week long celebration highlights programs from the university’s fine art departments: film, architecture, music, dance, design, printmaking, painting and sculpture. Six days of activities ramble all over Lafayette, from the UL campus to River Ranch, and finally wind up at a grand finale at Iberia Bank downtown. George Rodrigue, a former student in the university’s art program, will be honored with a SPARK lifetime achievement award, says Dean of the College of the Arts Gordon Brooks.
Today, the festival kicks off with a fashion show dubbed “Cajun Flage.” Students from first-year design and fashion design studios have crafted and will model apparel based on Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline.” As a counterpoint to the nineteenth-century poem, the clothes are made out of camouflage fabric — a contemporary ode to local culture. The show will take place at 6 p.m. in the main gallery space of the ACA. For the rest of the week-long schedule, check out the College of the Arts Web site.