Artpark: the creative heart of Western New York

The history of Artpark is a fascinating one. A multi-arts space quite literally on the edge of the Niagara Gorge, it was once an industrial waste dump, meaning its hilly contours are man-made rather than naturally occurring; but long before that, it was part of well-known indigenous lands (the name Niagara comes from the Iroquoian language, spoken by the Haudenosaunee, indigenous peoples found largely in northeastern North America and Upstate New York 4000 years ago). There’s even an ancient burial site hidden away on its grounds, no longer signposted, and allowed to grow wild as a mark of respect.

Founded in 1974, this unique State Park’s purpose was to bring land art, live theatrical performance and music to the people of the State of New York, a vision of New York Republican politician Earl W. Brydges, for which the State Park takes its full name (Earl W. Brydges Artpark). Sonia Kozlova Clark, the President of Artpark, tells us that originally Brydges wanted it to be a pageant theatre for tourists doing reenactments, but when the idea reached the desk of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, things changed. “Why not opera, why not symphony, why not other kinds of art?” Clark excitedly paraphrases.

Now every summer, through June, July and August, Clark and her core team at Artpark & Co. programme and run over a hundred presentations, from small poetry readings and walking performances to huge 7500 capacity outdoor concerts and 2500-4000 capacity theatre productions. It's nothing if not ambitious.

When we meet with Clark, it’s immediately clear what excites her. It’s the possibilities of Artpark and what its 150 acres, its purpose-built theatre and its outdoor amphitheatre allows; the park is quite literally her playground. But it’s not just her playground, it’s a beautiful, welcoming and creative space for the local community of Lewiston (population approx. 15k) where Artpark is based, but also for the neighbouring towns and cities, with Buffalo just a short 30-minute drive, and Canada quite literally its backdrop across the Niagara River.

Image: Artpark Theatre by Tallah Brash

Clark, who is the same age as Artpark and has worked at the nonprofit for eight years, tells us that most people in Lewiston have some kind of connection with the park, with a lot of its residents having their first jobs here over the summer months, working the bars or volunteering at the various events which roll through the park each year. In the handful of days we spend in the town, it becomes quickly apparent that Clark is the Leslie Knope of Lewiston. 

Much like Knope (spoiler), Clark wasn’t born in the town, but she’s an unstoppable force, problem solver and multitasker who everyone seems to know, and she just wants the best for the people of the town. Her box office staff (one of whom is even called Ann!) refer to her as their “Russian Queen” (Clark is originally from Moscow), and during a major 7500 capacity sold-out event that we attend, Clark is omnipresent, seemingly completing funding applications in tandem with working the event, where we spot her in several locations throughout the night, either speaking with security, stage crew or funders. 

Before coming to Artpark, Clark spent time in the theatres of New York City, where she lived from 1994. She ran a small theatre in Manhattan for a decade before going back to school to study Commercial Theatre Producing and she toured internationally, working with international productions, but tells us that her “comfort level is really with street artists, and new music.”

She continues: “I always was really drawn to outdoor experiences and how performance art can collaborate with the site, just that whole idea of ‘site’, I’m constantly shifting things and playing. I’m just really entertained by this idea of how a particular art form fits within a site, so that audience, performer, artist, site collaboration is most fascinating to me and having seen this space, when they were looking for a new Director, I thought ‘well that’s where all the things connect’.

Image: Mantra Percussion performing at L'Oiseau @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 13 Jul by Jordan Oscar

“This is perfect, like everything I’ve been working toward: commercial stuff – I can do that. The site-specific stuff – yay! New music – oh my god! So I got it all, and my background was originally as an accountant, so I can do that too,” she says, laughing. “It just doesn’t get any more perfect… and we’re the same age, I’m turning 50 too. Just something matches you sometimes. [Also], this community were very courageous, you know, to hire somebody with a Russian accent.”

But Clark has repaid that courage in bucketloads, encouraging the local community of Western New York to get involved in art and productions wherever possible. A number of large artworks can be found across the site, many of which are local artist commissions, and in 2018 Artpark staged an ambitious production of Todd Almond and Lear Debessonet’s THE ODYSSEY featuring over 200 participants, where Broadway stars joined community actors and volunteers following months of workshops, rehearsals and collaborations. Taking a chance on lesser known productions is something Clark particularly thrives on, but with a theatre space that’s all or nothing (its 2500 capacity space is non-negotiable), involving the local community is a way to encourage attendance from the local community too as family and friends come to see their loved ones perform.

Clark’s predecessor George Osborne (not that one) came up against this very issue too. She explains that with his background in modern dance and ballet, he quickly came to the conclusion that it’s very hard to run the theatre with that purpose alone, hence turning to rock concerts, which the park is now perhaps best known for. “It just became a fantastically popular place, with sponsorships, and it really is sustained in a pretty exceptional way, honestly there’s not a lot of organisations in this country that have that kind of foundation. We’re very fortunate.”

Image: Lauren Daigle @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 14 Jul by Jordan Oscar

There’s a partnership between Artpark and the State: as a nonprofit, Artpark & Co. raise their own funds and look after the programming and events, while the State looks after building and site maintenance and provide utilities, which Clark describes as a “fabulous deal”. She says that it’s because of that rare agreement, they’re able to do so much. She says “the subsidies for programming are minimal, but we’re very good at raising funds for that or selling tickets.”

As a nonprofit, Artpark has several regular corporate sponsors which help keep ticket prices low and means an annual programme of over 100 events each summer is possible (“I try to make sure there’s something [on] close to every day”). Given Clark’s extensive background in the arts, she passionately tells us: “I just want to share what I experience with everybody... I pull everything I’ve seen that I feel fits here, and people love to be challenged, they are ready for a challenge. I find that oftentimes, it’s hard to give them permission to come here for the first time, to experience something for the first time, that’s unknown.”

She goes on to explain that in more metropolitan areas like New York City, Boston or LA, “people go there to discover new stuff,” but at Artpark, “it’s just the opposite”. She's often being asked “‘can you bring us somebody famous?’” She tells us that when she first wanted to do THE ODYSSEY, people were asking “can you do Mamma Mia?” which is why her idea of bringing the community on the stage is so important. For Clark it’s all about striking a balance, between the big events, and the smaller ones that are a labour of love.

Image: Sonia Kozlova Clark at Fairy House Festival @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 15 Jul by Jordan Oscar

“The one thing that does still bother me is that we’re in this culture where we constantly have to find some kind of justification for things that are just beautiful. Like, why is that in itself not important?” Clark passionately questions. “Somebody walked away with tears of joy in their eyes, is that not important? It's always about numbers, facts, quantifiable outcomes. I know they have to somehow justify to the powers that be of their donors. But that culture of patronage, when they used to have very wealthy people who just simply supported a composer, or simply supported an artist, just because they found it important in itself... Why do I constantly have to say that art is economy?”

It’s a point that even the biggest pop stars are touching on right now, with Charli XCX taking to Twitter for a rant just days after our chat. “I feel like we live in a world where audiences feel like expression or art isn’t worth their time unless it appeases every single unspoken requirement. IT IS SO BORING,” she said. “If something breaks common aesthetics it’s “weird” or “try hard”, if something conforms it’s “offensive” and “not diverse enough”. What a boring discourse.”

What a boring discourse indeed. But it’s something Clark fights against for Artpark with her “whatever it takes” attitude. “I’ve been kind of a warrior,” she says with a wry smile, “I have that reputation.” 

During our chat, Clark tells us she has several (we later find out this means 17!) artists staying at her house, and one such artist from Tbilisi, Georgia, Uta Bekaia (here to work on the Fairy House Festival) is making a big pot of food for everyone. She uses this as the perfect analogy for the goings on at Artpark, that she admits she likes to call "the soup". “It’s really kind of what we are," she enthuses. "Everything goes in the pot, and everything stews and boils and creates this delicious [meal].” So if Artpark is the pot, all of its vast and varied components, no matter how big or small, make up this so-called delicious soup. And what is soup without its mirepoix, chicken, potatoes, seasoning, spices, oil, butter, bay leaf or stock? It’s just flavourless water, which nobody wants.

Over the course of the week we spend at Artpark, we experience three very different kinds of events, which barely scratch the surface of Artpark. We attend two 7500-capacity outdoor concerts (Barenaked Ladies and Lauren Daigle), the family-friendly 13th annual Fairy House Festival, and L’Oiseau, a guided walking concert along the Niagara Gorge, part of their New Music In the Park series. All the while, wine and pottery events and kids' summer schools take place during the day – and the park is of course just open daily for free so you can take in its beautiful grounds and land art whenever you like (and maybe spot an eagle, snake, or beaver or two while you're at it).

Image: Niagara Falls, US side looking over to Canada by Tallah Brash

Artpark really is an incredibly special place, run by a remarkable team of individuals, with Clark leading the charge on everything, adjusting as she goes and involving the local community every step of the way. If you ever find yourself in the State of New York, or even across the water in Ontario, during the summer months we implore you to add Artpark to your must-visit list. The setting is extraordinary – you can even walk all the way to Niagara Falls from the park in around two-and-a-half hours (or take the free Discover Niagara Shuttle Bus, which conveniently stops at Artpark). You simply won’t find a better pot of soup anywhere else.

Walking Concerts and Fairy Festivals

Yes, the Barenaked Ladies show, with support from Five For Fighting and our very own Del Amitri, was a lot of fun. Yes, the Lauren Daigle show was a hit, and people came out in their thousands, but there is so much more flavour to be found in the smaller events – in the seasoning.

L’Oiseau Guided Walking Concert Along the Niagara Gorge @ Artpark, 13 Jul
The guided walking tour from L’Oiseau, programmed by Brent Chancellor, as part of Artpark's New Music In the Park series was quite simply astonishing. We meet at Ellen Driscoll and Joyce Wang's Bower installation at the start of the park’s upper trail and after a short meditation together, we head off on our walk making four stops along the way. First, stood atop a large rock, Cathie Apple draws us in with beautiful and complex flute, playing three pieces throughout our 20 minutes there – the music seems to dance on the wind; bending out of shape, it practically creates its own call-and-response off the walls of the Gorge. About 100 metres down the path, in another clearing we find Darryl Tonemah stood atop another large rock, armed with a trio of native flutes. It’s much warmer in sound than the staccato sharpness of Apple’s playing before, enhancing the calm of the area with the glistening Niagara River gently flowing behind us.

Image: Darryl Tonemah performing at L'Oiseau @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 13 Jul by Jordan Oscar

Another short walk leads us to cellist Timothy Stanley joined on another big rock by sibling dancers Grace Wythe and Alissa Wythe-Bundy. The dancers beautifully parade on top of and around the rock, swishing iridescent organza as they go, while Stanley takes on some mind-boggling tricky-sounding cello pieces. There’s a mix of dark and light in his playing that matches the mood of the dance perfectly, with a gentle rustle of leaves in the wind heightening the experience towards the end.

We’re then led to our final spot, a small clearing which appears to usually be reserved for BBQs. We find a small rock to sit on and dazed, watch a circle of six percussionists known as Mantra Percussion stood facing each other, each beating a different length plank of purpleheart wood. The piece they play, entitled Timber, lasts for around 45 minutes and is utterly mesmerising. The walls of the gorge act almost like an auditorium and the sometimes elastic and rubbery, sometimes brittle sounds seem to whir overhead, somehow morphing into an almost synth-like sound as it reverberates off the gorge. There are no speakers, no synths, everything we hear is acoustic, but suddenly it feels amplified and electronic. It’s eerie and unsettling at times, but it soars. As we walk home in the dusk of sunset, fireflies twinkle along the side of the trail back to Artpark’s main hub and our hearts are full.

Fairy House Festival @ Artpark, 15 Jul
On our final day at Artpark, storm clouds hang heavy in the air and the humidity is unbearable for those of us wearing normal everyday clothes, so we can’t even begin to imagine how the performers at the 13th annual Fairy House Festival are feeling. Mucca Pazza, a technicolour marching band from Chicago, wear unbreathable synthetic materials as they parade around the grounds hyping everyone up in-between other performances, while fairies found in every corner of the site wear layered swathes of thick fabrics, and equally-thick makeup. But you’d never know for a minute they were hot. Maybe that’s the power of fairies?

Image: Mucca Pazza at Fairy House Festival @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 15 Jul by Jordan Oscar

Incredibly intricate and magical fairy houses of all shapes and sizes line the wooded paths; tucked off the main thoroughfare of the Artpark, they spark the imagination of those out on family day trips. We follow the path and find fairies tucked away in the woods too, playing weird and wonderful instruments which lure us through to a hidden stage where we find a whole band of fairies performing a mystical rendition of Manu Chao’s Bongo Bong. It’s... unexpected. Later, one of the fairies plays a theremin, as kids and dogs dressed as fairies dance along to the cosmic sounds. Later, back at the site's main concourse, that same theremin-wielding fairy walks in a wide circle playing violin while their fairy cohort plays a wind-up box as other fairies dance around a maypole. It's weird, but we like it.

Today’s whole festival has been directed by DakhaBrakha founder Vlad Troitsky, and is a beautiful coming together of cultures, performance art and music with traditional Ukrainian song and art inspired by Maria Prymachenko – a large collection of Prymachenko's work was reportedly destroyed in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sure, there’s certainly a dark undertone to the festival this year, but Mucca Pazza and the vibrancy of the art and performers’ costumes keep spirits high, and we’ll be chanting ‘ch-ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch-ch, CHEER’ for months to come.

Image: Fairy House Festival @ Artpark, Lewiston, WNY, 15 Jul by Jordan Oscar

The most beautiful moments come in a sombre collaboration between Mucca Pazza and the Ukrainian folk musicians who perform various times around the site throughout the four-hour event. A particularly moving performance piece sees dancers dotted around the maypole with giant sheets of cloudy diaphanous plastic which shift-shape of their own accord in the wind, stopping us in our tracks as we eat lunch. From start to finish, the Fairy House Festival is a joy, and a beautiful coming together of the community with Ukrainian culture, art, music and performance.

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Events continue to take place this summer at Artpark until 9 Sep, with some big names including the likes of Pixies, Modest Mouse, Alvvays and Alex G as well as more from their New Music In the Park series

To find out more about Arpark and what's on, head to artpark.net