ARTBREAK 38 Is More, More, More

ARTBREAK is back April 8-14, 2024, (Public Festival 12-14) just the way you like it with more color, more creativity, more dancing to the music, and much more family friendly fun. Celebrating its 38th year, the Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) is once again showcasing Arts in Education programs in Caddo Parish Public Schools with 95,000 full square feet of visual, literary, performing, culinary, fashion, lighting design, and film Art filling the Shreveport Convention Center. And there’s more…SRAC is awarding almost $25,000 in savings bonds and cash prizes to hundreds of students; and welcoming almost 50,000 students, parents, teachers, and festival goers to the free, hands-on family festival weekend, April 12, 13, and 14.

Walk through the doors and it’s as if a giant color confetti canon has exploded overhead and left the brilliant reds, yellows, and blues hanging in mid-air. The color continues to surround you head to toe as you walk through the hundreds of student creations displayed throughout the center. Then parents and children get in on the act and create their own color with more than 50 make-and-take S.T.E.A.M. activities under the direction of professional artists from across the region.

More and more of what makes ArtBreak fun is NEW this year with Louisiana’s premier performing Arts in Education collective, True Mission Matters (TMM), entertaining with upbeat musical instruments and unique street dance styles including waving, breaking, house, and step-dancing on the McDonald’s Gilley stage throughout the week. Sculptor, architect, and artist from Durham, NC, Eliza Redmann, will demonstrate her Folded Poetry design and train students of ALL abilities as the featured artist for the Very Special Arts Festival (VSAF). Art Break has joined with more community partners to bring new S.T.E.A.M. hands-on projects to the festival including a geodesic dome from The American Society for Civil Engineers and the Louisiana Engineering Society, miniature artworks for the Highland Free Little Art Gallery project from Noel Community Arts Program, a DIY kaleidoscope designed by Renzi Education and Art Center, and a glass mosaic tryptic that will be displayed in a public building by Sanctuary Arts School, among others.

This year’s Shreve Memorial Library Second Grade Reading Adventure brings an exciting new storytelling stage to ArtBreak featuring the book Loud Mouse, written by Cara Mentzel and Idina Menzel, who will be one of the featured authors for the Shreveport Memorial Library Children’s Book Festival on May 4, 2024. It’s a story that encourages children to be themselves and to be content in all that they do. There will be lots of singing, dancing, silly antics, and of course, costumes. The library’s hands-on, make and take activities include hand drums and tambourines which children can create with their own colors and designs while listening to the jazz music of The Shreveport Regional Jazz Ensemble (SRJE).

ArtBreak is a week-long festival highlighting student creations and ensuring that students and families get to spend an entire weekend celebrating more and more and more of the success and synergy of S.T.E.A.M., the KTAL-6 ArtBreak’s Got Talent show (where last year’s winner Maxwell Chambers went on to star as Little Michael in the Broadway sensation MJ The Musical), student master classes, the Very Special Arts Festival, Film Prize Junior, and so much more.

ArtBreak happens year-after-year only through generous grantors and community sponsors including Gilley Enterprise, Inc.-McDonald’s, owners of 40 McDonald’s across Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, who keep the golden arches shining over ArtBreak. The Alta and John Franks Foundation, Citizens National Bank, The Community Foundation, Community Network, Inc., Union Pacific, and The Leonard W. and Betty Phillips Foundation, all give generously to ArtBreak, to name a few! These patrons believe strongly in the mission of ArtBreak to showcase the arts programs and artistic achievements of students in Caddo Parish and other regional schools, and they make this free weeklong celebration and weekend festival continue to happen.

The Family Fun weekend begins Friday, April 12, when the Shreveport Convention Center will be bustling with student singers, dancers, musicians, performers; young film producers; fashionistas; emerging chefs; light designers; thousands of high school, middle school and elementary school visual artworks, poems, short stories, Haiku and other literary artworks; hundreds of banners showing the support of major sponsors; and several thousand proud parents celebrating the creative achievements of Caddo Parish students of all ages.

It all started in 1984—39 years ago—and ArtBreak 38 just keeps giving you more and more and more. Bring the whole family to the Shreveport Convention Center Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 12, 13, and 14, 2024. It’s Free and Open to the public, with free parking.