Creative Pinellas plans a three-day celebration

Creative Pinellas, the county’s arts support organization, pulls out all the stops this weekend for Arts Annual 2022, its annual (well, yeah) celebration of art, music, dance, theater, film and community.

There are three parts to the event: Thursday night brings The Party, a fundraising gala that includes the first look at the new Creative Pinellas art exhibition, with works by Anna Ayres, Elizabeth Barenis, Nathan Beard, Christina Bertsos, Saumitra Chandratreya, Nerverne Covington, Javier T. Dones, John Gascot, Jim Gigurtsis, Jason Hackenwerth, Steph Hargrove, Kenny Jensen, Patricia Kluwe Derderian, Cecilia Lueza, Cora Marshall, Mark Mitchell, Gianna Pergamo, Babs Reingold, Carol Mickett & Robert Stackhouse, Xina Scuderi, Emily Stehle, Judy Vienneau and Angela Warren.

For Friday, the organization has curated a free series of Artist Tours and Talks, including a panel discussion called THE JOURNEY: The Future of Black Tampa Bay. Find the day’s full schedule here.

Saturday’s component, Performances in the Park, delivers live performance outdoors and an indoor film component, all free and open to the public.

In the courtyard:

11 a.m.: The Academy of Ballet Arts with scenes from The Nutcracker.

11:30 a.m.: Musical highlights from local composer Tom Sivak’s Oh Gasparella!

12:15 p.m.: Latin dance performance and instruction with Javier T. Dones.

1 p.m. and 1:45 p.m.: Two sets from the Brazilian music band O Som Do Jazz, led by composer and trombonist David Manson.

2:45 p.m.: Musical highlights from Gaspar! The Musical from local playwright Bill Leavengood and composer Constantine Grame.

The indoor film series includes screenings of the locally-made Little Satchmo, Diversity 2022 – A Portrait of the Local Community and SIMI The Series Episode 1.

All events will take place at Creative Pinellas, 1211 Walsingham Road, Largo. For more information (and tickets for Thursday), click here.