At Quinby House's "Max (dance) Pants Art Show" today, the two featured musical groups will not be the only ones expressing themselves artistically.
As the Max Pants Extravagance and Soul Cannon perform, audience members will be encouraged to create their own art using various building materials that will be strewn about the house.
"Think of it as a live art gallery, of which the pulse would be the special guest musicians," said Sam Stack '08, recipient of a Mellon/Kurtz Fund grant that allowed him to organize the event.
"The grand intention is to inspire interactive improvisational art from members of the student body, while bringing together students and faculty in delicious revelry," Stack added in his proposal.
"We want to look to expand people's current ideas about what college houses are capable of," said Quinby House President Sean Morris '10. "There's always time for fun, but college houses offer students something more than drinking, and what better way to say that than with some inspired live music and collective, interactive art that explores the nature of group consciousness?"
Students and faculty members will have the opportunity to create art while the bands both play from their repertoire and improvise.
The space will mimic the environment of an art gallery, with materials such as recycled cardboard and colored building blocks with which students and faculty can construct exhibits while listening to the bands' performances. In addition, art students' work will be on display throughout the house.
"The idea behind this was simply to explore the nature of how we work together to create something greater than the sum of parts," said Morris.
Members of Max Pants Extravagance and Soul Cannon come from the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University. Soul Cannon is a spoken word and improvisational jazz/hip-hop music group.
"Max Pants Extravagance will play percussive classical music you can dance to," said Stack.
According to Stack, Max Pants, a member of the group, aims to "play beautiful music that his audience can interact with far from the restrained applause of the performance hall.
"He wants active participation and vocalized enjoyment," said Stack.
Max Pants Extravagance performed two years ago at Bowdoin in Ladd House.
"The hope would be to bring this event a step further with the spoken word and improvisational hip-hop and jazz elements," Stack said.
The show will take begin today at 6 p.m. in Quinby House. Refreshments will be served, and the event is open to the community.