High Zero is not only weird, sophisticated, and over the top--it is also broadly participatory and deeply community based. Its both in the spirit of festival to have all sorts of ways for people to get involved, and also very much a practical necessity to launch of festival of this size on our limited budget. If you want to get involved creatively and/or just help out, we would love to have you.
Here are some of the things you can do:
Volunteer
We organize the festival year round on a volunteer basis but starting a month before the festival we need 20-30 smart, reliable people to sign up to help with a variety of tasks: selling and taking tickets, giving rides to the airport, helping with stage management, installations, housing musicians, and other tasks. Its fun and more importantly it helps the festival out A LOT. People who volunteer get a free ticket to a night of the festival for every day they volunteer. If you are interested, contact
festival@highzero.org.
Perform
While the main stage is invitation-only and booked a year in advance, there are many opportunities to perform at High Zero through High Jinx, our broadly participatory, informal and unofficial site specific and street performances held throughout the city starting a week before the festival, which are some of the wildest and most inspired public art events in Baltimore. PARTICIPATE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Directors:
People who can decide on an event, organize it (what, where, who and when) and then follow through and execute it. This can be a simple event with one director/performer standing on a street corner or a complex event with many involved.
Performers:
People who either have skills which satisfy the needs of a particular perfomance or people who want to perform in something that doesn't need specific skills
Places:
A great site can dictate what should be perfomed there (ex. crossing over). Or, a great site can be perfect for anything you put in it.
Documenters:
Video cameras, journalists, poets, photographers, sound recordists, spys.
Creative thinkers:
High Jinx is almost "anything goes". Simple ideas can make beautiful events. What can you amplify? (knitting needles) Take the mundane and over emphasize it (ultrareductionist library band). Make music out of almost nothing by meerly changing the context of existing sounds (honkers). Just act silly (the hat band). Be visual (folded paper). Be weird (crossing over). Be conventional (music games). Show off your basement projects (invented instrument)
Promoters:
People who'll tell people what's happening, where and when, post to email lists, put up flyers. People who will bring more people to get involved.
Donate
Yup, we need money. We get a huge amount done for every dollar donated and have almost no waste. Click here to support us and we will be forever grateful! (Please note that we would love to have a real endowment, if you are really wealthy and would like to see this continue for the next decade.)
Tell Us
...how you think the festival could be better, and maybe we'll learn something.
We try to make it better and better each year. We would love to read your suggestions. Send them to festival@highzero.org.