Look no further than Oklahoma City if you and your family have yet to make plans this weekend as our state’s capital hosts three festivals and a parade.
One of the country’s premiere celebrations of Native American art and culture comes to Oklahoma City this weekend. The 28th Annual Red Earth Festival and Parade takes place Thursday, June 5 through Saturday, June 7.
More than 1,200 American Indian artists and performers from across the country converge to celebrate their heritage with a parade downtown and a festival at Remington Park.
A juried art market opens the festivities Thursday evening from 6 to 10 p.m. The market features a diverse mix of contemporary work like paintings and sculptures as well as traditional native art forms like beadwork, basketry and jewelry.
Native American spirit animates the streets of Oklahoma City Friday morning as hundreds of participants parade in authentic tribal regalia for the 2014 Red Earth Parade. The procession circles the Myriad Botanical Gardens beginning at 9 a.m.
Back at Remington, competitors representing over 100 tribes dance into the arena for the event’s ‘Grand Entry’ at noon on both Friday and Saturday. An award ceremony for champions is held on Saturday at 6 p.m.
The art market, native food booths, children's activities, a youth art exhibition and live music on two stages make up the rest of the festival’s entertainment. Thousands of guests are anticipated as the Red Earth Festival continues until Saturday at 7 p.m.
The family-friendly festival-fun continues on the Bricktown Canal as Rock the Boat returns for its second year. The festival includes a full day of special activities and live music in several Bricktown locations on Saturday, June 7.
Aside from pop-up retail shops and food vendors, the event features kid’s entertainment like face-painting and free caricatures from noon to 6 p.m. Also, families can cruise the canal together as Downtown OKC, Inc. provides free water taxi rides.
Rock the Boat "after dark" then continues from 6 p.m. to midnight featuring live music at three different stages along the Bricktown Canal. Additionally, more than a dozen restaurants like In The Raw and Mickey Mantle’s provide food and drink specials.
Admission to Rock the Boat is free and open to the public.
On the other side of the Bricktown Bridge, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art hosts the Sundance Short Film Festival Tour from Thursday, June 5 through Sunday, June 8. The Tour features screenings of several short films from the January 2014 edition of the Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah.
Since its genesis 30 years ago, the Sundance Festival has become one of the country’s premier showcases for short films and has launched the careers of many prominent independent filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino.
The Tour’s diverse program includes eight of the festival’s shorts including certain Sundance hits such as Sandhya Daisy Sundaram’s Love. Love. Love., which won the ‘Special Jury Award for Non-Fiction’.
http://youtu.be/_tBekcjBdi0
The museum’s Sundance Short Film Festival Tour features back-to-back screenings of all eight films on six different occasions this weekend. The program opens on Thursday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m. followed by screenings on Friday and Saturday at 5:30 and 8 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $5 for museum members and $9 for non-members.
For more ways to fill the 168 hours of your week, visit KGOU's event listings page.
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