From 1991 to 1999, the nonprofit Trenton Avant Garde, Inc. produced a bunch of really great things in the city of Trenton, including a yearly all-arts festival affectionately and unaffecctionately known as TAGFest. Each festival had multiple stages, indoors and outdoors, in and around historic Mill Hill Park in the City's downtown. The park has a concrete amphitheater standing beside a stream, with an old Roebling-era suspension bridge over the stream, for pedestrians. This formed a natural centerpiece for the festival's activity. Other stages would be set up in temporary shacks and platforms around the park, in the Mill Hill Playhouse that sits on the edge of the park, in Joe's Mill Hill Saloon about two blocks away southwest, and in the First Methodist Church about two blocks away northeast. TAG was (and is, I think) all volunteer, and mounted this festival, its fundraisers and other events on a shoestring budget from mostly private donations and a yearly (small) grant from The Times of Trenton. The Times and local college radio also supported us with free Public Service Announcement ads and features.
Through TAG and with the help of TAG volunteers, I mounted the George Antheil Project in 1994, which staged several significant performances of the avant-garde Trenton-born composer's music in the city, including performances of the notorious Ballet Mecanique. Members of The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, The College of New Jersey Percussion Ensemble and the Philadelphia Virtuosi participated in those "Mecaniques," conducted by Dan Spalding. When I left Trenton in 1999, I thought, well that's the end of Antheil here, but lo and behold, here comes Guy Livingston with his own Antheil organization. So thankfully there's been more or less continuous Antheil activity for the last decade and the future looks promising for more.
Other TAG events included a yearly Women's Art Exhibit, curated by Tricia, and an annual (usually) fundraiser at Joe's Mill Hill that was one of the brightest events on everyone's social calendar.
TAG was founded by a group of friends surrounding Dimitri Rotov, an entrepreneur and proprietor in the '80s of Hopewell Records. In the late '80s, Dimitri started a program of events he called New Variety that would be staged at any of a handful of venues in the city. Out of these events a core group formed consisting of Dimitri, jazz bassist Wilbo Wright, painter Deirdre McGrail, visual artist Tricia Fagan (now curator of the Mercer County Community College art gallery) and myself. We were the main force of the organization over the next nine years.
Our first TAGFest was 1991. The power of the idea was its simplicity: we invited artists to come, give them only a venue and as much publicity as possibile and tell them they can do whatever they want. That was it. The participants loved it and would come hundreds of miles to stage their work.
The actual event was a vital, energizing experience. But organizing it every year was hugely difficult and it seemed to get harder instead of easier. From About 1997, relations within the core group became so strained that we couldn't really hold meetings anymore and although we made a concerted effort to find replacements for ourselves, none materialized. Dimitri left to concentrate on family. Deirdre left to pursue her career. And finally I left just because I needed a change. Tricia and Wilbo, who have since married (they, at least, could get along with each other) went on producing the odd TAG event here and there, but the festival itself was defunct after that. There is little in the way of actual hard feelings between any of the core group members anymore. But there is a considerable distance these days.
Although we were supported by the newspaper and others, the City of Trenton gave us very little in the way of simple cooperation, let alone active support. Sometimes, the lack of support from bureaucrats reached the level of active disincentive, throwing obstacles in our path in the hopes that we would simply give up and go away. On top of that, the problem of attracting an audience to events in Trenton remained huge throughout the life of the organization. It's my understanding that those reasons are at the heart of Wilbo and Tricia's decision to hold post-TAG events outside the city.
The stories surrounding New Variety and TAGFest are legion, often hilarious, sometimes pathetic and sometimes tragic. I'm extending the invitation for any who participated to send their story to me and I'll collect them and link them to this site.
--C.