The renaissance atmosphere came to life on the grounds of Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center (GBPAC) Saturday for the opening of the musical production “Camelot.”
“With the production of Camelot coming to Gallagher Bluedorn, we wanted to think of as many ways to bring the story to life,” Blake Argotsinger, associate marketing manager at the GBPAC said. “From creating an actual sword in the stone to this Renaissance Faire, we’ve tried to create a unique experience surrounding the show. By doing this, we’ve created an opportunity for our patrons to live out the days of the Renaissance and then see it come to life on stage.”
Dotting the front lawn of the GBPAC were stations that included sword fighting, blacksmithing, face painting and a performance area for puppet shows.
For Will Lubaroff, sophomore vocal music education major, the comedy sword fighting performance was what he looked forward to the most.
“I had to be at Gallagher Bluedorn anyway for a rehearsal and I saw it on the website and I figured I’d stop by. I haven’t been to a renaissance faire since I was a kid,” Lubaroff said.
With the faire landing on Family Weekend, it gave the staff at GBPAC something fun to plan for patrons and visiting families.
“Luckily, some staff members at the Gallagher Bluedorn are well-versed in ren faires and could direct us to those acts,” Argotsinger said, “Many of the performers you’ll see at our faire will have also performed at the Des Moines Renaissance Faire and even up to the Minneapolis Renaissance Faire.”
Amanda Banks was a volunteer for the faire and has been performing with renaissance faires for seven years.
“I like smaller faires because just you have more interaction with everybody and you can kind of be able to see everything right away whereas if you’re at a bigger faire a lot of times you don’t get to see as much,” Banks said, “You’re kind of stuck not going anywhere.”
For Banks, having the opportunity to spread the word of renaissance faires in different places was a great idea.
“To us it’s second nature, we’ve done it forever but there’s a lot of people out there that don’t really know what a renaissance faire is or what exactly goes on so then we can kind of go out and people can see exactly what we do,” Banks said.
Skylar Davis, freshman English major, enjoyed the sword fighting station that the UNI Swordfighting Club had set up.
“It’s been really fun. It’s fun to do and it gets out your stress too,” Davis said.
As far as having a renaissance faire again, Davis, Banks and Lubaroff agree that it would be fun to have it return.
“I think there are a lot of students who would like to go to something like this but don’t have the means of transportation,” Lubaroff said.
The faire ran from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. before the first showing of the musical, “Camelot.”
