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Free, family-friendly fun awaits at Moogfest

The annual festival devoted to art, music and technology runs Thursday through Sunday at various venues.

Posted Updated
Moogfest 2016
By
Kathy Hanrahan
DURHAM, N.C. — Yo Gabba Gabba's DJ Lance Rock and a host of free art installations are among the free programming coming up this weekend at Moogfest in downtown Durham.

The annual festival devoted to art, music and technology runs Thursday through Sunday at various venues.

"The entire program changes every year. We have a large focus on free programming," Moogfest creative director Emmy Parke said.

As with previous years, American Tobacco Campus will be the hub of free programming on Saturday. The program starts at noon with a performance by DJ Lance Rock and continues with performances from Nanny Cantaloupe and McQueen Adams.

Peanut Butter Wolf will also be performing a tribute concert to pioneering musicians and synthesists who passed away in 2016.

Voice actor Michael Winslow, who you might remember from the "Police Academy" films, will also perform.

The entire afternoon is designed to show children and adults that music isn't just about sound.

"It is designed to inspire children to think about sound, not just about creating music. There are science, engineering, basic elements of technology, arts music, math," Parker said.

Just under the Lucky Strike Tower and outside of the Full Frame Theater, there will be a Moog Pop Up Factory, where instruments will be built live.

In addition to Saturday's all-ages activities, Moogfest is also offering a mix of free workshops and installations.

Democracy's Exquisite Corpse, an immersive installation housed within a completely customized geodesic dome, will bring together artists, activists, innovators and festival attendees to explore sound as a living ecosystem. The dome, which will be in CCB plaza, will house nine unique stations, each with analog or digital sound-making instruments. Each person's instruments will be chained to the person sitting next to them, so their choices will affect the person next to them and, in turn, the entire table.

Also in CCB Plaza, the Lily Dale Virtual Reality Installation will provide an immersive experience of a small utopian community in western New York that claims to be able to communicate with the dead.

Another installation to check out is Journey in Turiya, which is an homage to Alice Coltrane, the genre-busting harpist, pianist, composer and synth pioneer who was also a spiritual seeker, swamini and founder of an ashram in California. The installation will be above Loaf restaurant on West Parish Street.

"We wanted to bring the public art experience into downtown Durham," Parker said. "Kids that grow up in larger urban centers, they are surrounded by this stuff."

Moogfest wanted to offer young people a chance to "see the community you grew up in in a different way," she said.

"It is really about exploring the limits of human potential. This beautiful amazing potential that all human beings have," Parker said.

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