Norfolk, VA is home to the Virginia Arts Festival, a spring-time performing arts festival with a year-round education outreach program. The Festival utilizes multiple Norfolk venues, including two anchor venues – the Attucks Theatre and Chrysler Hall – that mark out diagonal corners of a 1-square-mile quadrant that contains the Young Terrace neighborhood, a public housing development. Young Terrace residents are among the poorest 1% of the nation’s population. While Chrysler Hall is located in a downtown area that is increasingly arts-rich, the short journey to the Attucks Theatre takes one out of downtown and outside of the bubble where most arts and culture activities occur.

The Virginia Arts Festival endeavors to enhance our outdoor programming in downtown Norfolk, and to branch our programming out of the downtown area so that another neighborhood has access to performing arts experiences. The Festival will create an arts presence in Young Terrance through music education programs in Young Terrace schools and free, outdoor events aimed at enlivening public space for the residents.