For the past 21 years, the Columbia Festival of the Arts has grown into one of the premier arts festivals in the area, providing theatrical performances, musical concerts, art exhibits and workshops from regional, national and international artists.
This year?s festival features a community art project in which locals may purchase premade birdhouses to decorate the way they choose. The birdhouses, 101 in all, will be displayed during LakeFest, which kicks off the festival every year.
“It?s going to be a really fun project. Not only are professional artists participating, but so are people who are finding that they have an artist inside that needs to be released,” said Nichole Hickey, executive director of the festival. “I?m also pleased to say that a number of recognizable individuals in Columbia?s community are taking a shot at bringing that side of themselves out.”
The birdhouse project is just one way that the festival is fulfilling its mission of provoking the mind and engaging the community.
“We want a community art project to always be a piece of the festival ? some really visual creation that people in the community can have fun working on,” said Barbara Lawson,chair of the festival?s visual arts committee and chief executive officer of the Columbia Foundation.
Past performers have included Aretha Franklin, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Emmylou Harris, Harry Connick Jr., The Langston Hughes Project and Twyla Tharp Dance.
“Historically, the festival brings acts to this community that no one has heard of, and they just knock your socks off,” Lawson said. “I always look forward to what?s going to be the surprise of the year.”
Listed below are some of the performers slated for this year?s festival.
Since his television debut on NBC?s “Phenomenon” reality show in 2007, Mike Super has been called the “Dane Cook of magicians” more than once ? to the performer?s delight. “I love Dane!” Super said with a laugh. “I take that as a huge compliment.”
Super?s career skyrocketed when he won the hearts of mystifiers Criss Angel and Uri Geller (not to mention millions of NBC viewers) with his comedic style of magic to become the first “Phenomenon” out of 10 other contestants.
Magic?s biggest problem today? Clichés. “People think of a guy cracking bad jokes in a 20-year-old tux and pulling rabbits out of a top hat,” Super said. “Other forms have evolved. It?s only a little different than being a musician or a writer or a singer. Magic is just another way of expressing yourself.”
The success of the show mostly relies on interaction with the audience, Super said. “Ninety-nine percent is that connection with the audience, and about 1 percent is the tricks. The magic of my whole show is bonding through similar experiences and making people think that they know me.”
As part of his performance, Super predicts the headlines of local newspapers and reveals his guesses to the audience. He will reveal his predictions for The Examiner on June 21 at the festival. “It really creates a great buzz because even the newspaper itself has no idea if I will be right or not,” Super said. “It?s a lot of pressure because I can hardly remember what my next flight is, let alone what I predicted. Hopefully, I?ll be right.”
Although singer Ryan Shaw didn?t start listening to soul music until he was in his late teens, it hasn?t affected his ability to wow audiences all over the United States.
“[Soul] just feels like music I?ve been singing my whole life,” the 27-year-old Georgia native said. “I grew up singing in the church, and if you listen to the music, the core structure and the melodies, they are so reminiscent of traditional gospel. It?s the same music, just different words.”
Shaw expanded his musical education while performing in the gospel musical “A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Part II)” and Tyler Perry?s “I Know I?ve Been Changed.” After various Motown and soul gigs, Shaw joined vocal group The Fabulous Soul Shakers in 2004. The members were so impressed with his talent that they immediately cut a demo ? four songs that later ended up on Shaw?s successful debut album, “This Is Ryan Shaw.”
The singer is working on his second CD, due out next year. “I?m trying to heavily limit the covers that I do, because I have such a great body of work that I?ve written,” he said. “I?ve got a good chunk of work done already.”
?STREB vs. Gravity?
Choreographer Elizabeth Streb admits she knew little about the art of dance when she founded her dance company, STREB, in the late 1970s. “I didn?t care much for it. I wasn?t interested in dancing with a company. I had my own questions about movement.”
Once called the “Evel Knievel of dance,” Streb has been credited with founding a new style of dance, one that combines dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, the circus and Hollywood stunt work. She calls it “action movement” or “PopAction.”
“I didn?t think that what existed already [in the world of dance] was going to apply to what I wanted to do,” she said. “I realized that I would have to develop my own particular type of skill, and I know in retrospect that I was right.”
“STREB vs. Gravity” uses various contraptions, including Plexiglas walls, trapezes, cinder blocks and one giant wheel. The nine-member company uses the props to hurl, smash and slam their bodies while performing the choreography.
Streb said she knows now that her instincts were right. “Way down deep in my spirit, I feel like I could have easily been barking up the wrong tree with my experiment. I feel now that it?s as valid a direction as anyone else might take or explore. And it?s a great feeling to have that cloud of doubt lifted a little bit.”
Luna Negra Dance Theatre
As the founder of the Luna Negra Dance Theatre, Eduardo Vilaro had to face a lot of stereotypes. “When I cameto the United States from Cuba in the 1960s, I needed to see a reflection of who I was. I was Latino, Cuban. I didn?t see a reflection of who I was in the media,” he said. “There were a lot of stereotypes that I had to break within the dance world. I wanted to give Latino artists a choice so they could express themselves.”
Luna Negra creates, teaches and performs contemporary dance created by Latino choreographers. The company?s style blends ballet with contemporary dance and traditional Latin and Afro-Caribbean forms.
Vilaro lauds the company for encouraging contemporary thinking through dance and ensures his dancers are only thinking about movement and how to convey it to the audience. “People like to say that dance is a language,” he said. “Every time a dancer goes onstage, they are creating a new language. We spend a lot of time talking about movement and how they are connected with that movement. The steps are easy. But I want the dancers to own their movements. That?s the whole
point of dance.”
Closing the festival for the second year in a row will be the East Village Opera Company, back by popular demand. Founded in 2004 by vocalist Tyley Ross and instrumentalist Peter Kiesewalter, the EVOC has been burning up the United States and Europe with its unique style of “rock opera” ? or whatever you want to call it. “People want to hang the title of ?rock opera? around us,” Ross said. “That doesn?t describe what we do very well.”
Currently working on its third CD, EVOC consists of Ross and Kiesewalter, as well as lead female vocalist AnnMarie Milazzo and seven instrumentalists. The company strives to make opera accessible to all audiences by reworking and rearranging traditional operatic pieces to reflect more modern musical stylings.
Ross said their process for reworking a traditional composition is complicated.
“In a perfect world, we would agree on a song, and when we started working, we would sit there in front of the sheet music, perform it as best we possibly could, and once we learn what?s on the page, that?s when we allow our instincts to come in,” Ross said. “But it?s not always a standard process.”
