Music, visual arts and performing arts merged in a variety of forms and styles on Friday at this year's Arts Crawl.

Arts Crawl is an annual event put on by Students Organizing the Multiple Arts (SOMA) and the Visual Arts Student Alliance (VASA). Each year it features visual art exhibits, activities and demonstrations in multiple arts buildings on campus with live bands and performance artists at various locations.

The night began at 6 p.m. with a performance in the Zoller Gallery by local ska band Some Downtown Avenue.

"I guess they wanted to start the event off with a bang and we provided that," trumpeter Michael Barasch (senior-journalism) said.

Shortly after the start of the opening performance, guitar and bongo duo Jason O. and Nodd Morris began playing in Palmer Museum of Art. This was the first year the museum has been a part of Arts Crawl.

"We just thought it was a really natural thing to get involved with," Dana Kletchka, the museum's curator of education, said.

Kletchka added this was the perfect time to introduce the museum's new student membership program.

"We want to show that the museum is not just for visual arts -- it can involve music, film and performance," Kletchka said. "It's not just a formal place, it can also be a place to hang out."

The event also featured strolling minstrels who led groups of people to performances in other buildings.

"It takes a certain amount of charisma and there is some element of improvisation," Mark Celeste (junior-English) said of his job as a minstrel.

Guitar in hand, Celeste and other minstrels had to think quickly to make up new tunes or new lyrics to famous songs to tell their audience about the next destination.

Being a minstrel was a rewarding experience, Celeste added.

"It's cool to see all the different arts working together," he said.

Later in the evening, audiences in the Visual Arts Building were treated to the premiere of the Sculpture Club's lunar mission film.

The film was created for submission to a competition by NASA for college students in the arts and sciences. The competition asks students to create their interpretation of what life on the moon would be like.

"Sculpture Club has got to represent," Chris Donadio, president of Sculpture Club, said. "We decided to step up to the plate for America and go to the moon to see what it was like."

Antics in the film included lunar skating to the song "Apologize," eating space pizza, lunar striptease and even watching a friend turn into a space bear.

At one point in the film, Sculpture Club members passed out Tang to the audience and an actor in the video asked everyone to drink it on the count of three. This was a reference to the Jonestown Massacre, Donadio said, adding Tang was chosen because it was created by NASA.

"Focusing on a lot of the over-looked aspects of the lunar mission adds to the absurdity of the film," said Donadio, who is also a member of The Daily Collegian.

Upon entering the Sculpture Club's room, visitors had to walk across a set of wooden boxes blocking the entrance. The purpose of the set-up was to make visitors think about the space around them, Donadio said. Other sculptures created by Penn State students were also exhibited around the room.

After the dance party, the band What Happened to Page 83?, a group that combined music with performance art, played for the crowd.

While the musicians played, bandmembers Abagail Beddall (junior-art) and Cecilia Ebitz (junior-art) performed a routine and video images played on a screen behind them.

The performance varied in content from screaming, dancing and falling to the floor to throwing pieces of multi-colored gelatin, cardboard boxes and pieces of fur.

"They're redefining the idea of music and performance," Adam Shanur (junior-sculpture and art education) said. "The band responds to what the dancers are doing and they respond to what the band is doing."

Beddall described the band's style as "performance punk rock with an extra dash of visual stimulus."

Beddall and Ebitz have been friends since high school and have long shared an interest in art.

"We had this idea that we would do this performance gig," Beddall said. "We wanted to include music because music and art mesh well."

Both performers said they are used to their performances being seen as eccentric.

"It's in our blood, being extravagant and odd. It was expected," Ebitz said.

This year's headlining act, The Buddy System, who provided the final performance of the evening, also had visuals involved with its performance.

The band creates an animated video for every song it writes. These cartoons were projected onto the wall of 305 Visual Arts Building during the band's performance.

"We had always wanted to start a band with this visual component," Lauren Gregg, the band's bassist, said.

The band was introduced by members of SOMA and VASA as "the coolest band that could've helped us celebrate Arts Crawl."

Some of the animations during the show included rapping cats and dogs, binge-drinking groundhogs and a large hairy pink monster antagonized by floating fish and stars.

The band's final song of the evening, "Return to Horse Mountain," featured a video about a boy and a girl who are captured by evil horses and must battle their way out of the lair. It culminated in an epic fight with a unicorn.

"The more horse-punching, the better," Donadio, who was in the audience, said.

Members of SOMA and VASA were busy attending to "maintenance" issues the whole night, VASA President Lilly Zuckerman said.

"We had a slow start; we were about 15 minutes behind schedule," Zuckerman said. "Things get pretty hectic here. We have to work through the chaos."

Zuckerman also said she was happy with the turnout, adding that about 200 people came and went in Palmer alone within the first hour and a half, a number she called "unheard of."

She does hope for more participation from the School of Music and School of Theatre in the future, she said.

"This isn't just the School of Visual Arts," she said. "This is the whole College of Arts & Architecture."

In the end, Donadio said he was happy with how it turned out.

"It all tied together very well," he said. "I don't know how we're going to top it next year."