The Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts (BOPA) is hosting its sixth annual Free Fall Baltimore this entire month, an event that brings together museums, theatre, literary organizations and other local artistic endeavors to the Baltimore community for free. This year, BOPA implemented a larger advertising campaign and has added more programs to the calendar, such as events from Black Male Identity Project and Literary Arts Week.
By running Free Fall Baltimore, BOPA's main purpose is to encourage Baltimore dwellers to immerse themselves in the local cultural landscape that is thriving year round.
"Free Fall Baltimore has a two-fold mission," Randi Vega, Cultural Affairs Director of BOPA wrote in an email to The News-Letter. "The program highlights the many and varied cultural assets that are available in Baltimore, introducing new audiences to the various organizations participating. It also helps the organizations with audience development and allows them to participate in our extensive advertising campaign."
Free Fall Baltimore features much variety in its programming. Aside from free admission to many local museums and theatre productions and backstage looks at local cultural centers, studios and theatres, there are also many classes and workshops — with topics ranging from stilt walking, dance, guitar playing and ceramics — that let participants get hands-on with unique artistic pursuits.
These are the events that positively shape attendees experiences at Free Fall Baltimore.
"I love the feedback from people who have had great experiences attending Free Fall Baltimore events," Vega wrote.
The event calendar for Free Fall Baltimore is 13 pages long. With nearly 20 programs on each page, BOPA packs each day of October with a new event. New to the event programming is the Black Male Identity Project, an art project that aims to express and celebrate what it means to be a black man or boy, and Literary Arts Week, a literary arts celebration spearheaded by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and the CityLit Project.
"There are many great reading series and literary events in Baltimore, and we wanted to put as many as we could in one week to highlight the diversity and depth of literary events that happen in the region," J. Buck Jabaily, Executive Directory of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, wrote in an e-mail to The News-Letter. "Literary artists and literary audiences can be often isolated since it is often an art form consumed and created in solitude. Literary Arts Week is a way to bring literary creators and consumers together."
Literary Arts Week brings substantial diversity into Free Fall Baltimore's agenda with events such as the "BaltiVORE Plays," a reading of seven short plays that have to relate to Baltimore foods; "Why Read Moby Dick?" a talk with Pulitzer Prize Finalist Nathaniel Philbrick about why readers should not be intimidated by Herman Melville; and a public discussion with journalists Greg Myre and Jennifer Griffin about their book on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
"Everything has a focus on literary arts. The great thing is the diversity," Jabaily wrote.
Overall, BOPA wishes to attract Baltimoreans into unfamiliar territory and hopes that they enjoy it.
"The [official] Free Fall Baltimore message is ‘During October, you get to try something new and hopefully come back for more!'" Vega wrote.
Organizers and participants alike agree that Free Fall Baltimore is an eye-opening experience that opens many doors.
"That Baltimore has a vast and vibrant cultural community, and if you choose to look at even one slice of it — such as Literary Arts — you'll find a constellation of events and activities," Jabaily wrote.
Free Fall Baltimore officially began on Oct. 1 and concludes on Oct. 31.
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