Last year’s Flint Hills Family Festival kicked off less than two weeks after Tanya Gertz started a new job at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Tanya Gertz (Courtesy of the Ordway)

The new job in question? Coordinating the Flint Hills Family Festival.

She wasn’t in charge of last year’s festival, of course, but as the Ordway’s vice president of programming and community impact, she’s spent the past several months preparing for the 2024 family extravaganza.

This year’s festival, the 24th annual, takes place May 31 and June 1. The Ordway expects it’ll bring about 25,000 people downtown for free events in Rice Park and $5 indoor shows at the Ordway. You can find the full schedule at ordway.org/festival.

Gertz, who grew up in Chaska, was previously the executive director of fine arts at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. And before that, she spent more than a decade overseeing campus programming at Luther College in Iowa, and has been recognized as a leader in the performing arts.

Ahead of this year’s Flint Hills Family Festival, we chatted with Gertz about what she thinks makes the festival — and art — so special.

(This conversation has been edited and condensed.)

Q: After seeing the festival in action last year, what’s been the most exciting part of the process of producing it this year?

A: There’s so much energy and positivity and joy around it, and I get to work with so many amazing artists. The festival has several national touring artists that are here, and in addition to that, a huge swath of absolutely incredible Minnesota artists that the festival has created the opportunity for me to get to know.

I love things that are community-invested, that are inclusive, that connect people and impact them. Frankly, most people will never know me, but I get to create something they will hold with them and remember. That’s such an honor.

Q: What is it about the arts that make that sort of connection possible?

A: That’s a big question! I believe in the opportunity of experiences like this where you get to interact and observe, you get to experience the world, you get to know yourself better, you get to share something that really matters with people that you care about.

Q: I like that idea — that the festival is not just a one-time event, but something people carry forward.

A: Right?! We have people who were here as kids who are now back as volunteers and come back every year.

It’s just incredible to get to see how the festival connects with people, and that you see people through different chapters of their lives. But also, that it’s forever new! Maybe this is the year that someone experiences it for the first time.

And one of the joys of the festival is that it’s multiple generations. Little kids, their parents, their parents’ parents — all getting to see and experience things together. And that it’s for the kid in all of us! There are lots of things you can experience even if you don’t have kids.

Q: After the festival ends, what projects are you turning your attention toward for the rest of the year?

A: This month, we’re releasing the first half of our school performances series here at the Ordway. Schools bus in from Minneapolis, St. Paul, the metro area, greater Minnesota, and also western Wisconsin, and that’s about 25,000 kids.

We also work with an extended number of Minnesota artists we celebrate as our “Beyond the Stage” artists. We talk directly with schools about, what’s the best way to connect artists in your schools in an interdisciplinary way? We’re matching and creating opportunities for artists we love in Minnesota to make a difference in a more intimate way.

We also do a bunch of things in the community, where, similarly, we’re partnering with places like the Children’s Minnesota hospital where art makes a difference.

Minnesota is a special state in the sense that we want the arts here in our communities and our lives, and we’ve decided to support that. The dream is that we really are creating meaningful experiences for everyone through the fullness of their lives. And when you discover (art) at the beginning, and you understand how it makes you feel and how much you value it, it’s so much easier to explore new things and connect them to your life.

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