Southeastern NEWS
Southeastern Louisiana University
Public Information Office
publicinfo@selu.edu
SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
Date: 10/6/00
Contact: Christina Chapple 52N
Editors: Photo accompanies release Please note local interest
FANFARE'S THIRD WEEK OFFERS "SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE"
HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University's Fanfare makes good on its promise
of "something for everyone" in its third week, Oct. 15-21.
At its mid-way point, the university's 15-year-old October festival of the arts, humanities
and sciences will offer a visual and vocal history of African-American music, the stars of classic
Russian ballet, talks about togas and lasers, a theatrical lesson in science, a budding Metropolitan
Opera soprano, and a visit home by a Hammond native who has won fame in the Big Apple.
Fanfare will also embrace a trio of community events -- a family day of fun and art at
Hammond Square Mall, an exploration of the past and future of downtown Hammond's historic
Columbia Theatre, and the annual celebration of African American folk life and heritage at a
Kentwood church.
First up in Week Three is the Family Arts Festival, hosted by Hammond Square Mall
from 12:30 to 6 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 15. The free event features an entire day of art education,
including the New Orleans Opera Association's performance of "Hansel and Gretel," music by
the Reg Sanders Jazz Quartet and dance by Jeannie Tinnerello's Dance Studio, story tellers,
authors, artists and interactive art stations. Families also can enjoy viewing the more than 70
entries contributed by area students to the House of Blues Foundation folk art competition, which
is on display at the mall throughout October.
The Music for a Sunday Afternoon series of concerts at Hammond churches will continue
at 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 15, with the Kammermusik String Quartet at the First United
Methodist Church, 2200 Rue Denise. The lively young string quartet's varied venues have
included performing at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Ontario Winter Games, opening for
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singer Gordon Lightfoot, and performing for the inauguration of Michigan's governor.
At 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 16, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir will
bring traditional forms of African American music to the Pottle Music Building Auditorium
stage. In 1992, Tillery, a vocalist, speaker, producer, arranger and teacher from San Francisco,
discovered a treasure trove of field recordings of traditional African American music. Within
months, she assembled the Cultural Heritage Choir to perform spirituals, work and play songs,
field hollers and other slave songs in the folk tradition. Today, the choir is one of the vital
performing groups in its field and is rooted in Tillery's belief in the empowerment of
understanding the musical roots of the rural South.
Tickets for the performance are $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens, Southeastern
faculty, staff and alumni, and $5 for all students.
Southeastern English professor Wade Heaton will don his custom-made, authentic
Roman toga to examine the garment's meaning, symbolism, legal status, care, the art of toga
draping and why Romans never wore the sacred robe of peace to a party. Heaton s popular free
lecture, "The Toga: It's Not Just Clothing, it's a Concept," is scheduled for 2 p.m., Tuesday, Oct.
17, in the Pottle Music Building Auditorium.
At 3:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 17, in the Recital Hall, the Fanfare Foreign Film Festival
will offer "Marius and Jeannette," a charming French comedy-romance that earned standing
ovations at the famed Cannes Film Festival in 1998. The fairy tale centers on Jeannette, a tart-
tongued, tough-shelled single mother, and Marius, a shambling, taciturn watchman at an
abandoned factory site.
The Ballet Stars of Moscow, a stellar troupe of ten dancers composed of young soloists
from Moscow's leading companies, will perform at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 17, in Vonnie
Borden Theatre. The company's dancers represent the Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow Classic Ballet and
the Stanislavsky Theatre Ballet and are directed by Shamil Yaudin, ballet master of the Bolshoi.
As an ensemble and in pas de deux and solos, the young dancers will perform a program of
classical and contemporary works.
The troup also will offer a free master class at 4 p.m., Oct. 17, in the dance studio in the
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FANFARE WEEK THREE -- Add Two
Kinesiology and Health Studies Building. For information, call Martie Fellom at 504-549-2133.
Tickets are $18 for adults, $15 for senior citizens and Southeastern faculty, staff and
alumni, and $8 for all students.
Director, playwright, film maker and teacher Joan Vail Thorne will return to her
Hammond roots for a special Fanfare lecture at 2 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 18, in Pottle Music
Building Auditorium. A Southeastern Lab School graduate, she has won critical acclaim for her
off-Broadway production, "The Exact Center of the Universe," which is based on real characters
from the Hammond area. In a talk titled "Destiny and Desire: Chance or Choice in Art," Thorne
will illustrate why she is a true artist, forever examining the seeds of creativity.
Art educator and artist Denise Tullier-Holly and historian C. Howard Nichols,
Professor Emeritus of History at Southeastern, will present a multi-media lecture, "The Columbia
Theatre: Turning the Past into the Present," detailing the history of Hammond's historic
downtown theatre and its upcoming rebirth through renovation. The free lecture is scheduled for
6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the Hammond branch of the Tangipahoa Parish Library, 314
E. Thomas.
A frequent stage performer since childhood, soprano Danielle de Niese is beginning her
final year in the Lindemann Young Artists' Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera.
She is the youngest artist ever to enter the Met studio and attracted great acclaim as Barbarina in
the Met's 1998 production of "The Marriage of Figaro." She has also appeared in recitals at
Carnegie Hall and in concerts in Los Angeles and Santa Fe. Last month, she made her New York
Philharmonic debut in Medelssohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
The young singer's Fanfare concert is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 19, in
Pottle Music Building Auditorium. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for senior citizens,
Southeastern faculty, staff and alumni, and $5 for all students.
Kentwood's Sweet Home Baptist Church is inviting the public to share their annual
celebration of African American folk life traditions at Sweet Home Folk Life Days, set from 9
a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 20, and Saturday, Oct. 21. The Sweet Home Museum, the
church's picturesque original location by Cool's Creek just north of Kentwood on Hwy.51, will
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host demonstrations of traditional crafts, story telling, childhood games and music, in-depth
interviews and gospel music. Homemade root beer and special desserts such as fruit pies and
sweet potato pone will be available for purchase along with box lunches of open kettle fried
chicken, collard greens, red beans and rich and cracklin' bread can be enjoyed under the trees.
Visitors can also take a buggy ride along a nature trail and witness a traditional baptism at the
"Baptizing Hole," Cool's Creek.
Admission is $2. For additional information, contact Fochia V. Wilson, director and
curator of the Sweet Home Baptist Church Museum, 504-229-5016.
Southeastern physics professor David Norwood points out that the laser, just like the
computer chip, has dramatically changed our lives. It influences our knowledge of the university,
its planets, and how we spend our leisure time. In a free lecture at 2 p.m., Friday, Oct. 19, in the
Music Recital Hall, Norwood will explain just what a laser is, how it works and how it plays a
CD.
It has been said that Garry Krinsky "resembles a living cartoon with his animated
characters and non-stop energy." The man behind the family show "Toying with Science"
scheduled for 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 21, in Pottle Music Building Auditorium -- uses circus
skills, mime, original music and audience insolvent to demonstrate basic scientific principles
such as gravity and leverage. During his show, Krinsky creates a dazzling array of mime
illusions, juggles with an audience member and balance five ladders at one time on his chin.
Tickets for "Toying with Science" are $5 general admission and $3 for children under 12.
Fanfare offers two special "pay-one-price" series and a special rate for groups of 10 or
more. Series and group prices are listed in the Fanfare 2000 brochure and are available online.
For a Fanfare brochure and ticket order form or for additional information, contact
Southeastern Public Information, 504-549-2341, publicinfo@selu.edu. Fanfare information is
available online at www.selu.edu/fanfare. Tickets are on sale at Gate 1 of the SLU University
Center on University Ave., 504-549-2323, from 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m., weekdays
-SLU-
Press release available online at www.selu.edu./NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf00.htm