Other Diversions Around The U.S.
If you're searching for a Diversion of your own this summer, there's no shortage of arts festivals around the U.S. and the world.
 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival 2000 Poster By Dan Namingha Click here for more on the artist. |
You may prefer to launch a wider search for summer 2000 events that appeal to you. Click here for links to a number of Web-based events listings databases.
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
July 15-August 21
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival site
Patrons will "Begin the Beguine" at a post-concert dinner dance featuring the music of Cole Porter to kick off the opening night of this festival, Santa Fe's 28th. This year's guest composers include Hans Werner Henze, George Perle, David Raksin, and Morton Subotnick.
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
June 21-Aug. 27
The Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival traces its beginnings to 1933, when modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers began offering "Tea Lecture Demonstrations" at his farm in western Massachusetts' Berkshire hills. This year's headliners include the T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. and choreographer Mark Morris' company. And Paul Taylor and his dance company will celebrate his 70th birthday by unveiling the world premiere of a new work.
Lincoln Center Festival
July 11-July 30
The Bolshoi Ballet returns to New York after a 10-year absence for this prestigious festival with programs that include works by by Petipa, Grigorovich, Vasiliev, and Balanchine. And the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater introduces a new work by choreographer Judith Jamison that incorporates video technology and a Brazilian-inspired score. This prestigious festival encompasses music, opera, theater, film and video as well as dance.
Folmoot, the North Carolina International Folk Festival
July 18-30
More than 350 performers are expected to travel to western North Carolina to participate in this music and dance festival. It's the 17th summer for the event, held at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in and around Ashville. Current plans call for performers from Brazil, Bashkortostan, China, Greece, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Nepal, Panama, Sicily, Israel, French Polynesia and Egypt.
The Colorado Music Festival
June 30-Aug. 4
The Colorado Music Festival site
Classical musicians from across the United States and abroad keep busy throughout most of the summer by performing four nights a week in the orchestra of the Colorado Music Festival, in Chautauqua Auditorium west of Boulder. A fifth night presents selected musicians in the Estes Park Music Festival. The festival's 24th season includes a competition for new music director among four finalists who are the this season's featured guest conductors.
Bumbershoot (the Seattle Arts Festival)
Sept. 1-4
There's still time to get married on a special cake-shaped stage aptly called The Wedding Cake Stage in a ceremony performed by "Father Guido Sarducci" at the 30th anniversary of this arts festival that organizers say will draw more than 200,000 people to the Seattle Center over Labor Day weekend.
Other scheduled performers over the Labor Day weekend include Ani DiFranco, Billy Collins, Compay Segundo, Eric Bogosian, Iris Dement, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Mark Isham, Sandra Bernhard and Zap Mama. They are among 2,000 artists in every conceivable genre - music, theater, dance, film and video, literary arts, comedy, kids arts, performance arts, fine arts, crafts, and culinary arts - scheduled to participate. The event also features "The 1 Reel Film Festival," more than 100 live action and animated shorts.
Below are some Web sites that help users search for summer events. They are listed roughly in order of size and scope - from a modest list of community and cultural events by state, to a world-wide mega-search site for rts and entertainment listings.
Events2000.com lists events for every state in the U.S.
FestivalFinder.com lets users search by genre or performer among listings for 1,500 U.S. arts festivals.
Festivals.com goes well beyond festivals, listing community and cultural celebrations of all descriptions worldwide.
wwevents.com bills itself as a world-wide events search site. It's not there yet, but it does have extensive listings for destinations throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
CultureFinder.com, for real overkill, claims to have listings for 350,000 arts events in 1,500 cities.
- To return to our main feature, click on Festival Feats
- For more information about Les Colporteurs, click on Les Colporteurs In The U.S.
Rain Chant Symbolism was created for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival's 2000 poster by artist Dan Namingha. A Native American and a resident of Santa Fe, Namingha explores cultural migration and fragmentation in this work. Using Hopi and Tewa symbols, he demonstrates that migration can result in spiritual and intellectual growth, if undertaken with a strong sense of self. "It is possible to migrate, to cross cultures, without disconnecting from our own past," Namingha says. "It is important to know your basic roots, but also to understand you must move forward, acting on what's in front of you and adapting to it; That is survival. The steady beat of falling raindrops, illustrated as black and white vertical dashes in the painting, echoes this song of life, of rebirth and growth."