Weakley Arts Can coordinated four events at this year’s Soybean festival: School of Rock, Magical Mural, Instrument Test Drive and Line Up & Dance.
The events were hosted on Sept. 2, and altogether ran from 3 – 7 p.m.
School of Rock and Line Up & Dance were hosted on the small stage by the C.E. Weldon Library, whereas Magical Mural and the Instrument Test Drive were held along with the other Magical Martin events in Virginia Weldon Park.
School of Rock was open to everyone ages eight and up. In this event, members of Weakley Arts Can offered members of the community free onstage music lessons.
Each lesson lasted approximately the duration of the song that was being played, where participants could learn the basics of instruments like the keyboard, harmonica, drums and bass and electric guitar.
This activity encouraged the participants “to find the child within,” according to the announcer.
The Magical Mural event was open to children ages 5-12.
Magical Mural allowed children to unleash their creativity on a line of canvases. Trays of colorful paint were provided so that the participants could paint whatever they wanted without worrying about providing their own colors.
The Instrument Test Drive composed of a few UTM music students offering quick lessons on how to play their instruments, which included the flute, clarinet and saxophone.
The lessons were bare-bones, mainly with the purpose of showing participants how to make the instrument produce any kind of noise. However, they were able to expose people to instruments that they likely had not tried to play before.
The Line Up & Dance event ran from 5–5:30 p.m., and served as an intermission for the School of Rock event.
During this event, participants were encouraged to try a couple of different line dances.
The first was Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up,” which was first shown to participants, then taught step-by-step. Those participants were then given an opportunity to try it for themselves.
After that, Cupid’s “Cupid Shuffle” and DJ Casper’s “Cha Cha Slide” were played for people to come up and dance to.
“There’s so much to be gained from just being able to have access to the arts,” said Lizzie Emmons, a UTM faculty member and member of Weakley Arts Can.
“Mental health, physical health, keeping people out of activities that might not be particularly healthy, putting them in activities that are particularly healthy, just for expression.”
Although these events have finished, the rest of the Soybean Festival lasts until Sept. 7.
Weakley Arts Can is a local organization that advocates for arts education in the Weakley County school system.
To learn more about Weakley Arts Can, visit their website at weakleyartscan.org.
