bigmacbear (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigmacbear) wrote2008-07-26 10:59 am
bigmacbear) wrote2008-07-26 10:59 am
GALA Festival 8 -- Wednesday, July 16
As those who have been to any of the last three GALA Choruses festivals know all too well, it is only possible to see half of the performances or less because there are almost always two choruses scheduled to perform simultaneously in adjacent venues. Since the Twin Cities GMC production of "Through a Glass, Darkly" (a song cycle addressing the horrors of methamphetamine addiction which someone christened the "Meth Oratorio") was in direct conflict with our SMC performance last night, we went to the 10 AM performance in the ballroom at the Hilton near the performance venues. I was impressed with the solo work (much of which was not merely sung but acted) and the dance numbers, particularly "Making It: The Meth Song" which featured a troupe of dancers in full hazmat suits.
Since the only festival performances today would be the 25th Anniversary Celebration with the Festival Choruses, we took our time finding a place for lunch and explored the people mover system. It took some time to figure out the intricacies: there are three loops, one around the downtown core and two that peel off and head some distance north and south respectively. To go from our hotel to the concert venues we had to make sure to catch the "Omni Loop" (to the north) and not the "Brickell Loop" (to the south, which I took to calling the "butter-brickle loop" until![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gmjambear strongly suggested I stop), which travel in the same direction around the downtown core. On the return trip, to save time we had to transfer to the "Inner Loop" which travels the opposite direction from the two outer loops. So instead of returning to the hotel we switched to the Brickell Loop and headed south, hopping off at 10th Street and lunching at a Baja Fresh nearby. Then we returned to the Intercontinental and spent some quality time at the hotel pool before the afternoon's festivities.
The 25th Anniversary celebration, at the convention center (named, confusingly enough, after the same man as was one of the concert venues) began with several women's choruses including our own SWC singing backup for Dr. Berniece Johnson Reagon and her daughter Toshi on several of the songs that were featured in the early days of the GLBT and women's choral movements. In fairly short order we heard from each of the Festival Choruses: men's, women's, mixed, and youth. We were then treated to presentations of two outreach projects devised by the artistic directors of GALA choruses: one is an Australian project called the Choir of Hard Knocks, which engages homeless people in making music and has led to many choir members getting off the streets; the other is a prison ministry led by Muse director Cathy Roma. The celebration closed with the Reagons leading a sing-along of their music.
Afterwards we all piled into buses for Jungle Island. As it happened the "Bear Picnic" got kind of jumbled up in the general food service, but we managed to scare up some dinner anyhow. We chatted with a couple of guys from the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco who hail from Alameda Island near Oakland in San Francisco Bay. Also, we said hello to a nice-looking bear named Ernie from San Francisco and caught up with Craig from GMCW who we'd met in Tucson at Fiesta de los Osos. After discovering we would have to wait until late in the evening to see the No Talent Show, we visited the small petting zoo, admired some parrots (which are Jungle Island's claim to fame), and shopped a bit at the gift shop before boarding the bus back to the hotel. As one might guess with a bus full of singers, as people disembarked they were treated to a chorus of "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound Of Music or perhaps "Good Night, Sweetheart" as originally recorded by the Spaniels and popularized again by Sha Na Na.
Since the only festival performances today would be the 25th Anniversary Celebration with the Festival Choruses, we took our time finding a place for lunch and explored the people mover system. It took some time to figure out the intricacies: there are three loops, one around the downtown core and two that peel off and head some distance north and south respectively. To go from our hotel to the concert venues we had to make sure to catch the "Omni Loop" (to the north) and not the "Brickell Loop" (to the south, which I took to calling the "butter-brickle loop" until
gmjambear strongly suggested I stop), which travel in the same direction around the downtown core. On the return trip, to save time we had to transfer to the "Inner Loop" which travels the opposite direction from the two outer loops. So instead of returning to the hotel we switched to the Brickell Loop and headed south, hopping off at 10th Street and lunching at a Baja Fresh nearby. Then we returned to the Intercontinental and spent some quality time at the hotel pool before the afternoon's festivities.The 25th Anniversary celebration, at the convention center (named, confusingly enough, after the same man as was one of the concert venues) began with several women's choruses including our own SWC singing backup for Dr. Berniece Johnson Reagon and her daughter Toshi on several of the songs that were featured in the early days of the GLBT and women's choral movements. In fairly short order we heard from each of the Festival Choruses: men's, women's, mixed, and youth. We were then treated to presentations of two outreach projects devised by the artistic directors of GALA choruses: one is an Australian project called the Choir of Hard Knocks, which engages homeless people in making music and has led to many choir members getting off the streets; the other is a prison ministry led by Muse director Cathy Roma. The celebration closed with the Reagons leading a sing-along of their music.
Afterwards we all piled into buses for Jungle Island. As it happened the "Bear Picnic" got kind of jumbled up in the general food service, but we managed to scare up some dinner anyhow. We chatted with a couple of guys from the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco who hail from Alameda Island near Oakland in San Francisco Bay. Also, we said hello to a nice-looking bear named Ernie from San Francisco and caught up with Craig from GMCW who we'd met in Tucson at Fiesta de los Osos. After discovering we would have to wait until late in the evening to see the No Talent Show, we visited the small petting zoo, admired some parrots (which are Jungle Island's claim to fame), and shopped a bit at the gift shop before boarding the bus back to the hotel. As one might guess with a bus full of singers, as people disembarked they were treated to a chorus of "So Long, Farewell" from The Sound Of Music or perhaps "Good Night, Sweetheart" as originally recorded by the Spaniels and popularized again by Sha Na Na.
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Made me wish I was still part of the chorus and had attended...