The Green Box Arts Festival arrives with a cultural zing and a physical beat. For two weeks in July, the festival has people dancing in the streets, watching opera, viewing art, listening to stories or hiking a trail. All of this in the cool mountain air of Green Mountain Falls.

In its 18^th year, this summer’s festival celebrates the nation’s 250^th and Colorado’s 150^th birthdays for that patriotic ambience.

The festival opens with a parade along Ute Pass Avenue on the Fourth of July.

The Americana theme continues with Quarteto Nuevo which features the music of composers ranging from Leonard Bernstein to Bob Dylan.

“I found the quartet at the American Performing Arts Convention in New York City,” said Scott Levy, executive director of Green Box Arts, a nonprofit organization.

Throughout the year, Levy scouts the nation on the lookout for talent, which is how he happened upon Mikah Meyer for the festival’s Art Desk Conversations. 

“The piece, ‘Parks Unknown,’ details his adventures as the first person to visit 400-plus national parks in one trip – took about three years,” Levy said. “It’s a singing travelogue.”

Despite regional and national recognition, the festival still retains that neighborly flair, a reunion of sorts for the locals.

For instance, Green Box Arts is calling fans, local or not, to submit videos recorded during the festival.

“We’re working with a filmmaker for a mini documentary about what it feels like to be part of Green Box,” Levy said.

A sensory experience, the festival is feast for the eyes with art installations such as Billy Joe Miller’s “Open House,” on the town’s Anderson Trail. 

“Imagine a log cabin that doesn’t have walls and the ceiling is of blue glass tiles, so the sunlight will change what it looks like when you are inside this kind of sanctuary gathering place,” Levy said.

At times, Levy doesn’t have to board a plane but rather picks up the phone, which is how he “found” Lynda’s Phones, a nonprofit foundation that uses wind phones as a kind of therapy.

“A wind phone is an old Rotary dial telephone that isn’t connected to anything, and it gives people the opportunity to have a conversation with their (late) loved ones,” he said. “It’s a way to deal with grief.”

The phone booth will be on a hill overlooking Green Mountain Falls.

“We do a lot of health and wellness activities during the festival,” Levy said. “In a way, the wind phones can be considered a healing art.”

Levy’s announcements are like a drum roll.  Up next is the opera “La Boheme” filmed during a performance in Santa Fe.  

“We are continuing the tradition with a pre-opera tailgate party on July 12,” Levy said. “We are the first, outside of New Mexico, where people will be able to see a filmed version of a Santa Fe opera.”

From a silent film to an installation of tinted textiles that reflects the artist’s Iranian heritage from an American perspective to a performance by the Oklahoma City Ballet Company, the festival blends culture with nature.   

The festival concludes July 19 with a block party on Lake Street with two bands.

“In curating the festival now, I’m trying to create the most diverse and largest menu of various artistic disciplines I want people to be surprised,” Levy said.  “As we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of America, I want the festival to be a celebration every day.”

From the 4^th to the 19^th, the festival is packed with events and performances, the schedule to be released June 1 at www.greenboxarts.org.