Magic will ride the air this week at ODU. Beginning today, there will be music and tripping-the-light-fantastic, and most importantly, a verbal awakening. Today begins the first annual ODU Arts Reunion, a week-long excursion into every kind of fine arts the university can offer.

"A natural coming-together of various artists," Is how Dr. Philip Raisor, event coordinator, describes the festival. "Musicians will team up with poets, and mime actors, dancers-this sort of fine arts consolidation hasn't really happened before in Tidewater and we want to see how far we can take it; how many artists can work together at the performing level. There's been an explosion of arts in the Tidewater area recently, and it's opened up all new possibilities."

Sponsored by ODU's Department of English and "Interplay: Expansion of the Arts," the Arts Reunion will feature participants such as Anthony Hecht and W. D. Snodgrass, both Pulitzer Prize-winning poets (Snodgrass is currently poet-in-residence at ODU). Other participants include the Board of Directors of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP, an organization of teachers, writers, students, and educational institutions committed to writing and the general literary community), Sherri Brennen, Paul Dicklin, Alf Mapp Jr., Martin Pachey, and lstvan and Ana Ament (all Tidewater participants). Visiting participants will be featured, among them pianist Frank Glazer and Michael Mott, Writer-In-Residence at the College of William and Mary.

Programs will continue throughout the week, from morning till evening. A reception on the grounds outside the Planetarium will kick off the events, followed by a poetry reading by members of the

graduate poetry workshop, within the magical environment of the Planetarium dome. More readings, translation performances, workshops in poetry, fiction/nonfiction, and piano will follow; also a jazz/poetry performance, and a first-time dramatic staging by Paul Dicklin of W.D. Snodgrass's The Fuhrer Bunker poems.

The Dream Theatre will treat the public to three selections of synchronized mime and prose throughout the week in front of Webb Center; these Street theatre compositions are the work of Philip Graham, a Poet-in-Residence in Richmond and Norfolk.

Throughout Webb Center and in the AWP office (rooms 214-216 of the Arts and Letters Building), several exhibits will be on display, such as the Book Bus, a traveling display of publications from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, N.Y. Parked on the Mail, the Bus will display and sell the books of over 80 small presses, 30 literary magazines, and numerous recordings.

The AWP Book Exhibit will feature works of their members, and Tidewater's Heritage Society will present a collection of photographs and literary works from contemporary foreign writers, all in Webb Center throughout the week.

The Arts Reunion is a first this year, essentially an improved extension of last spring's Poetry Jam. The major difference is that the Reunion is a milestone in Old Dominion history, and an opportunity not to be missed by anyone with a penchant for the arts.

"We expect a lot of interested people," says Dr. Raisor.

"They want to see what the AWP will do, and they'll get a chance to see some world-famous figures."