The crowd danced along as Bollywood Dance Club performed at Earth Festival to an upbeat song.
This past Friday, the Phillips Academy Sustainability Coalition (PASC) hosted Earth Festival in celebration of Earth Week. Students and faculty alike gathered on the Gelb Science Center lawn to enjoy the sunny weather, eat nature-inspired chia seed pudding, and watch music and dance performances from students to celebrate the environment.
Ella Kowal ’25, Co-Coordinator for the PASC, shared insight into the organizing process to make the event as successful as possible.
“We started planning this event maybe a term and a half ago. We talked about what our vision was, what worked well last year, and what would work well this year, and then we started reaching out to people we knew who were in popular performance groups on campus… [We] gave them pretty free rein to do whatever they wanted because we wanted this to be a time where they can really showcase their creative expression,” said Kowal.
This freedom facilitated an environment in which the performers were able to engage with the audience in different ways. Josie O’Rourke ’24 commented on how much she enjoyed the show’s hosts, Jaceil Britton ’25, and Maddie Redmond ’25, who entertained the crowd with their enthusiasm and energy.
“I’m really enjoying the MC’s, Jaceil and Maddie. They kill it every time they’re on stage, and they really just bring liveliness and enjoyment and some fun to the party and really just grace every event they go to… They’re amazing,” said O’Rourke.
The event was an opportunity for the Andover community to come together around something that impacts everyone: the environment. Ava Shu ’27 reflected on the Earth Festival as a uniting experience for both the performers and the audience members.
“I enjoyed how all the groups came together and really gave their own style and… gathered everyone who loves this earth and wants to protect it… It was a very small area, and everyone was outside showing their support; every performance was really brief, very to the point and it was just very homey, more than I expected,” said Shu.
This sense of unity was one of the PASC’s central goals when creating the Earth Festival. Kowal shared that their primary aim was to put on an event that brought people together to enjoy the Earth to its fullest.
“Through Earth Festival, our main message is just, let’s celebrate the Earth. We spend so much time feeling climate anxiety, and just feeling almost an overwhelming sense of dread that we really forget how important it is to know what we’re fighting for, so Earth Festival is just a reminder to everyone, how important it is to just love Earth and understand what it does for you,” said Kowal.
Bollywood Dance Club was one of the groups that performed at the festival. Complete with flowy pink pants and an upbeat song, the audience was having fun along with the performers. Kashvi Ramani ’24 shared her experience as a newer member of the club and the positivity she felt from the audience.
“The audience reacted really well. I think people really liked it. One of our friends was in the audience holding her phone horizontally, like a little iPhone, kid (love her so much) and she was recording. We didn’t really mess up, even though it was kind of hasty at the end, it all came together,” said Ramani.
Earth Festival, while aimed to create a fun atmosphere, also sent a message about being mindful of the Earth and preserving the environment. Kowal encouraged all to engage in climate action, even through small changes.
“In our day-to-day life, it’s really all about small options, like think twice before you throw plastic bottles in the trash, think twice before you leave your room, and make sure you turn your lights off… but in the long term, it’s really just about education. Make sure that you can talk to people and get them to understand what the movement’s about, and it’s also good to once in a while go do trash cleanups, go talk to your legislators, and just try to get the word out about making big-scale changes,” said Kowal.
