Guide: Virginia Arts Festival has global flair

In covering the waterfront, the Virginia Arts Festival has thrown its net wide. Really wide. To England, Spain, Cuba.

The regional festival’s international thrust has been part of its mission since its first season in 1997. “One of the founding principles or goals of the festival was to draw people from outside the area,” said director Rob Cross, who developed the festival from the ground up. “I felt strongly to do that you had to be presenting international artists.”

The initial fest featured a few groups, including Germany’s Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, that traveled from other lands. Over the years, the caliber and number of international groups grew.

Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001. Nederlands Dans Theater II in 2003. The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 2004.

The festival books most of these artists as part of an existing tour. Once in a while, the festival brings a group over just for Hampton Roads, as in the case of Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2007 and 2010.

The 15th festival, which opens Tuesday in Norfolk with the world premiere of a music-theater piece about the Civil War in Virginia, “Rappahannock County,” showcases numerous international acts.

Cuba gets special emphasis this year, with two groups headed our way. The Septeto Nacional de Ignacio Piñeiro, an 84-year-old group credited with inventing salsa music, performs Wednesday at Norfolk Academy. Danza Contemporánea de Cuba makes its United States debut May 6 at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach.

In addition, Cuba native Manuel Barrueco, a classical guitarist who now lives in the United States, will perform at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk on April 25.

A Canadian bluegrass trio called The Wailin’ Jennys is blowin’ south for a gig April 26 at the festival’s new headquarters building, which contains a small theater.

Jordi Savall, an early-music superstar from Spain, is bringing three ensembles with him for a May 12 concert at Trinity Episcopal Church in Portsmouth.

Finally, the patriotic spectacle called the Virginia International Tattoo, produced and directed by Scott Jackson, features a global array of marching bands. This year’s Tattoo, set for April 29 through May 1 at Norfolk’s Scope, includes more than 850 performers from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Tonga and the United States.

In setting up logistics, the arts fest staff has to keep an eye out for surprises due to cultural differences.

The Tongan musicians will land in California. They asked the arts fest staff if they could take a bus to Norfolk.

“They had no clue how big this country is,” Cross said.

The Cuban dancers told the festival they could not take part in master classes on a certain day because they would be busy unloading their equipment.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Cross said he conveyed to the group. “We want you here to do education and to dance, not unpacking a truck.”

What does it take to land these international acts, besides visas, fees and available dates?

The answer is years of raising funds, cultivating audiences and taking good care of the artists.

“It’s a lot easier for us to get the artists we want, and international artists, because the festival has a reputation and a track record,” Cross said.

Now prestige presenters sometimes call the arts festival, rather than the other way around.

The Joyce Theater in New York, one of the nation’s top dance venues, contacted the festival last year about a small, exclusive tour of the Cuban dance company. Just Norfolk, New York and Philadelphia, in that order.

The Joyce had been trying to bring the contemporary dance group to the States for a decade, Linda Shelton, the Joyce’s executive director, said by phone. But travel restrictions between Cuba and the United States made it tough.

“We were finally able to figure out how to do it. The process of the visa for artists from Cuba has lightened up a little bit,” Shelton said.

She asked Julia Glawe at IMG Artists, one of the world’s top artist management firms, to come up with names of possible co-presenters. Glawe is director of the dance division “and knows every presenter in the nation,” Shelton said.

“The Virginia Arts Festival was the first one that came to mind,” Glawe said, by phone from New York. Partly because the festival continues into May, when the dance company was available.

But Glawe said the festival “ticked off all the boxes of what we were looking for in a presenting partner.” She said she appreciates that the fest treats artists well and connects the artists to the community through talks, workshops and other interactions.

“We’ve known about the Virginia Arts Festival for a number of years,” said Glawe of her agency. “We’re well aware of the reputation it has, and the kind of high-quality artists that it presents.”

IMG’s Jenny Palmer, a regional booking manager, has attended the festival and worked with Cross and his staff. It’s important to know a group can pull off an engagement in every way, starting with raising needed funds, she said.

“We can’t even get to the part of sending the artist there unless you have someone with the actual vision and the skilled ability to raise the money and inspire confidence in other people that he can do this,” Palmer said.

She credited Cross’ “incredible enthusiasm and positive approach” and his “ability to bring people together.”

In their contracts, artists make requests regarding the location of the hotel, the type of ground transportation, a particular piano, certain snacks in the dressing room.

“These things do not necessarily happen,” Palmer said. As times get tough, some presenters negotiate to reduce what they offer the artist.

The arts fest “takes fantastically good care of the artists. And Rob Cross, I assure you, will introduce himself and the staff will introduce themselves to the artist. …

“And that’s not how all presenters work. I know some presenters who will never introduce themselves to the artists and may not even attend the show.”

It’s all a huge effort.

“You have to go that extra mile to present international work,” Shelton said. “A lot of my colleagues around the country have decided not to do it.”

To just stick to American artists would take “a lot less effort,” Cross acknowledged. “And it would be a lot less interesting. And we wouldn’t have the kind of audiences we have.”

Last year, more than 30 percent of ticket buyers came from outside the region. In 1997, that figure was 13 percent.

“And from a purely personal standpoint,” Cross said, “I get to see some of the greatest artists from around the world.” Right here, in the waterfront communities of southeastern Virginia.

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485,teresa.annas@pilotonline.com