Houston’s Countercurrent festival was a free arts festival being promoted by the Cynthia Mitchell Arts Pavillion at the University of Houston. I had the awesome opportunity to work with the Black Sheep PR agency as a Brand Ambassador for the event which means that I would attend different events and tweet, send Facebook posts, use instagram and snapchat to promote the event. The Black Sheep agency’s goal was to get more young people out to the event. They expected the arts community to come out, but they wanted to brainstorm on a way to get the entire Houston community and more UH students out to the event.

The first event that I attended was on Opening night of “The Ten Tiny Dances” which was phenomenal! Dancers and Actors got together to perform on a very tiny stage and they told very unique stories in 10 different ways. There was a full house and there were still people waiting outside to see if there was room for them to squeeze in. I would totally post videos, but my wordpress is not being too kind to me right now but I promise i’ll find a way to post at a later date! There were free light snacks like cheese, grapes, chips and guacamole along with free drinks. Most of the events were held at The Match located in Midtown here in Houston. It was an incredible sight to see that the place was packed and that I saw a ton of happy faces!

The second event that I attended was on their second night of “Fault Diagnosis” (every event had a name). This event was actually a walking tour in which everyone attending had to download a free app that talked you through what was happening throughout the actual performance. Now, get this! The performance was located right outside of the Ensemble Theatre on Main street revolving around a man sitting in an old, antique car. The app talked you through different emotions and obstacle the man had gotten through to get to that stranded car. All of a sudden, a blindfolded woman comes out escorted by two men. She starts to play her violin and the music that she plan really evoked the emotion of the whole scene. It was beautiful. It was definitely a lot of pain, sadness, helplessness and anxiety that you could feel watching the performance.

Countercurrent was definitely a success in my opinion and it lasted all week long with different events all for free. I only had the opportunity to see two events, but it was more than worth my time! I will definitely be attending next year’s event and I would rate the festival 5 out of 5 stars. For more information on next year’s dates for the event, check out http://countercurrentfestival.org/.