Summer is here, and the arts are embracing it with many opportunities to gather outdoors. A community favorite is the annual Heart of America Shakespeare Festival in Southmoreland Park, which winds up its nightly performances of Macbeth on July 5.
The influx of World Cup visitors was an impetus for the expanded Crossroads Night Market, a festive night out offering food, music and art. Located in the Crossroads Arts District just north of Fan Fest, the event, which continues from 5 to 11 p.m. July 3, 4, 5 and 10, 11, 12, is designed to encourage both locals and visitors to enjoy Kansas City’s vibrant cultural scene.
Further afield, there is whimsy in store at Powell Gardens, where realistic sculptures of dragons and other fantastical creatures haunt the landscape, and at the Overland Park Arboretum, which features a new installation of Atlanta-based Huelani Mei’s colorful linear sculptures of plants and animals throughout the park.
There are walking tours in abundance, including The Arterie, a new, self-guided walking tour linking the Kansas City Art Institute, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, with opportunities for shopping, dining and viewing lots of art. Outdoor sculpture lovers can also wander through the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Garden at the Nelson-Atkins, which is part of the tour.
Music is the star of the KC Jazz Alive Walking Tour through the 18th & Vine Jazz District, from 10 a.m. to noon July 25. Register at Eventbrite and gather at 1616 E. 18th St.
There are outdoor concerts aplenty, from the Museum of Kansas City’s July 10 Summer Concert on the Lawn featuring Legerdemain band, to the three-part Light Up the Lawn Concert Series presented by Midwest Trust Center and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, which kicks off with The Swallowtails at sunset Aug. 14.
Starlight presents the summer’s blockbuster this year with a July 4 Bob Dylan concert. The theater presents another favorite July 7-12, with the award-winning A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical.
Picnic, anyone? If you’re not headed out of town for the 4th, consider celebrating at the National WWl Museum’s Stars and Stripes Picnic, featuring food, fireworks and World Cup football. The Museum of Kansas City also invites visitors to picnic — and play lawn games — Sunday afternoons through July 26 at its Summer Sundays on the Historic East Lawn event.
Late summer brings the popular Ethnic Enrichment Festival in Swope Park, a showcase for cultures around the world with food, music, crafts and dance. The annual event celebrates its 47th year Aug. 21. And you can enjoy all things Celtic at the Kansas City Irish Fest, which concludes its Labor Day weekend festivities at Crown Center with an always rousing performance by The Elders.
