HAMMOND -- The Tangi Chapter of the Southeastern Louisiana University Alumni Association is sponsoring a "Night at the Columbia" during the university’s annual Fanfare festival of the arts.
      The chapter is hosting a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the popular downtown Hammond restaurant Tope La prior to the Oct. 15 Fanfare performance of the North Carolina Dance Theatre at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts. The acclaimed dance troupe will present “A Streetcar Named Desire” at 7:30 p.m. at the Columbia.
      Tickets are $30 and include performance admission and hors d’oeuvres. The reception will also feature a cash bar. Tickets for Fanfare season ticket holders are $10.
      For more information, or reservations, call Southeastern Development Foundation Annual Fund Coordinator Sarah Schillage 985-549-3771, or the Alumni office, 985-549-2150 or 1-800-758-2586.  Reservations should be made as soon as possible.
      North Carolina Dance Theatre's impressive reputation is based on superb dancers, high energy and a versatile repertoire ranging from full-length classical ballets to innovative contemporary works. In choreographer Mark Diamond’s “A Streetcar Named Desire,” an intensely dramatic ballet inspired by Tennessee Williams’ play, Blanche DuBois, a worn and vulnerable beauty, tries to preserve her beautiful but dreamlike world of the past in the brash and decadent atmosphere of 1950s New Orleans. Hot jazz, contemporary and classical music heighten the experience of this dynamic production by a company that The New York Times calls "unstinting in range and thunder."
      For additional information about Fanfare events, call 985-543-4366 or visit www.selu.edu/fanfare.