4th Annual Teresa Lozano Long Community Day Celebrates Austin Culture

Music, balloons and bubbles filled the Long Center on Saturday, as hundreds of Austinites gathered for the annual Teresa Lozano Long Community Day. A celebration of the Long Center, the event also highlights Dr. Teresa Lozano Long, the first Hispanic woman to earn a health and physical education doctorate at UT.

Bringing together a wide variety of musical performances, the day combined community partners and activities throughout the afternoon. Dallas Tate, producer at the Long Center, said their goal was to create an event opening up the entire building for the community.

“This is our fourth year doing Community Day, and the original idea was something we wanted to be able to have people come in and see … (what) we do here at the Long Center,” Tate said. “It turned into, like, ‘Why don’t we just make an open house … and show a little piece of the different things we do?’ … So the Ballet Austin, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Austin Opera, each of them get some time on our stage.”

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Community Day also highlighted the lasting history and legacy of the Long Center. Matt Ott, director of sales at the Long Center, said he aims to continue upholding the Long Center as a place for Austinites to come together.

“The Long Center has been part of my life since it was Palmer Auditorium,” Ott said. “I moved here as a kid in 1978. I saw the Talking Heads play here in 1983. … I’ve seen ballet, opera (and) symphony. Anything and everything happens here. … I joined as director of sales to support our community and this beautiful mission.”

While providing a stage for artists, the event also prioritized community partners and Austin-based organizations.

“It’s gotten easier as the years go on to get community partners,” Tate said. “A lot of them are nonprofits like we are, so it’s whatever we can do to support each other in this kind of business. … There’s a lot of cool stuff going on in Austin, so this is a good way to show it off.”

One of the organizations present included Texas Healthy Habits, a UT volunteer organization serving children in the local community.

“I feel like it’s really hard for kids to be able to interact with each other if not for events like this,” biology sophomore Jackie Khong said. “I think it’s really important for kids to (socialize) and get to know how to … coexist. But I think it’s cool to have an environment like this where they can enjoy themselves and not be at home.”

Ott said that he hopes everyone who attended Community Day experienced incredible art and found something that resonated with them.

“We’re hanging a lantern on the fact that a big part of our mission is supporting our community,” Ott said. “We’re the home of the ballet, the symphony and the opera, but we are really here as a community space. We want everybody in Austin to understand … that this is a community space that is open to everyone.”