Media contact: Priscilla L. Hunter, 312.344.7805, phunter@colum.edu or Micki Leventhal, 312.344.7383, mleventhal@colum.edu
Chicago, June 2003 -- Columbia College Chicago will kick-off its month-long arts festival: Michiana Festival of the Arts with the assistance of Dani Lane, President of the Dunes Arts Foundation. Lane will host a pre-performance party on Friday, June 11 at 6 p.m. The party will be followed by a performance of Once on this Island at the Dunes Summer Theatre, Shady Oak & Oakdale, Michiana Shores, Indiana and a post-show, Caylpso-inspired party, featuring steel drums and food from the Islands. Tickets for this three-event opening night gala are $100 per person. Call 312.663.1124, extension 2 to purchase tickets.
"I fully expect the Michiana Festival of the Arts to become an annual event and grow in both prestige and size to include more and more events as the years progress," says Dani Lane, President of the Dunes Arts Foundation. This collaboration between Columbia College Chicago and The Dunes Summer Theatre in the area known as 'Harbor Country' will be something people will look forward to each summer. Its proximity to Chicago makes the event an easy day-trip or weekend in the country."
"Once on this Island" is an adaptation of an adaptation: It is Hans Christian Anderson's story of "The Little Mermaid," set in Haiti before the time of a political coup in Rosa Guy's My Love My Love, and then shaped in music and song into an expression of several universal motifs. Though the forms may have changed, the journey and the themes remain the same: there will always be oppression, there will always be death, and there will always be love. These stories have been told from the dawn of time, from the moment that we, as humans, first found voice. Out of these stories comes the most important message – hope. Based on the book My Love My Love or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy; directed and choreographed by Danny Bernardo with Music by Stephen Flaherty; Book and Lyrics by Lynn Aherns. Showtime is 8 p.m. at the Dunes Summer Theatre, Shady Oak & Oakdale, Michiana Shores, Indiana.
The Dunes Bay Bash, post-show party with Clyde George's Steel Drum Band will begin at 9:30 p.m at the Dunes Summer Theatre.
Proceeds from events and activities of the Festival will support local arts programming such as the Dunes Arts Foundation, as well as scholarship funds at Columbia College.
Columbia College is the nation's largest visual, performing and media arts college. Located in the heart of Chicago's South Loop, Columbia blends the best of theory and practice in a dynamic and diverse urban environment.