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All The Photos from Cincinnati's Inaugural Performing Arts Festival 'This Time Tomorrow'

By CityBeat Staff on Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 9:57 pm

CityBeat sent their writers and photographers to venues across the city to cover the Contemporary Arts Center’s inaugural This Time Tomorrow performing arts festival. Sprawling over four days (April 11-14), it delivered a diverse lineup both stylistically, thematically and otherwise. Like its title alludes to, the fest centered on “art of the moment.” A mirror to contemporary art as a whole, the performances within This Time Tomorrow, in large part, were driven by immediacy and current social, political and cultural concerns. The result? Nine main performances — each textured in various ideas, styles and purposes — hosted by venues across Cincinnati. Spearheading the festival was Drew Klein, the CAC’s performing arts director. In curating TTT, he traveled internationally to various festivals, i.e., Fusebox in Austin, Texas; TBA Festival in Portland, Oregon; and others in Australia and across Europe. “I think curating is sort of constant research. And you’re always seeing performances and going to different festivals where you just learn about what artists are making, how different projects are developing,” Klein says. “Some of these projects I’ve been aware of for less than 12 months and other projects I’ve known about for quite some time and just haven’t felt like the Black Box series has been the right vehicle with which to bring that performance (here).” The series he mentions — the CAC’s Black Box — has offered up boundary-breaking performances from across the globe since its start in 2011, bringing 11 to 12 performances to Cincinnati each season. But this year — because of TTT — the series was condensed to six shows. So think of TTT as an extension of what the CAC has already planted with its performance art series. “(This Time Tomorrow) allows for improved opportunities for audiences to dig deeper into an artist’s practice and to understand the industry as a whole,” Klein says. “That’s one of the big things we’re trying to accomplish.” Here’s everything we saw — and experienced — as part of This Time Tomorrow. See all the reviews here.

Photos by Hailey Bollinger and Paige Deglow