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April Issue 2006
Artisphere Festival 2006 Takes Place in Greenville, SC, Apr. 21 - 23, 2006
Artisphere leaders held a press conference at Falls Park in Greenville, SC, to announce plans for the 2006 festival event. Artisphere - The International Arts Festival of Greenville is scheduled to launch its second annual event Apr. 21-23, 2006, with the festival's Opening Ceremonies to be held at 4pm on Apr. 21 in Falls Park. This indoor and outdoor, performing and visual arts festival is destined to become a major contributor to the flourishing arts community of Greenville and the Upstate.
Speakers announcing festival plans included Chairman of Artisphere's Board of Directors, Henry Horowitz; Honorable Mayor Knox White; President of Carolina First, Artisphere's presenting sponsor, Jim Terry; and Artisphere Executive Director, Mary Ellington. A special thank you to the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities Brass Ensemble for their performance at the press conference and to Greenville's Plein Air Artists for their appearance creating onsite paintings of falls park.
Artisphere 2006 programming includes the following: The Open Air Artist Row will include 100 of the country's highest caliber visual artists exhibiting and selling their works along Main Street from Broad Street to Camperdown Way to Augusta Street. Artists are represented from 24 different states and many from Greenville's local community. These artists are juried in annually through a very strict scoring process, and award winners from the previous year are invited back to participate.
A main stage at the Peace Center's Dow amphitheatre sponsored by First Citizens will feature performances by The Chicago Afrobeat Project on Friday evening; The Spanish Harlem Orchestra, a Grammy award winning salsa dance band on Saturday afternoon; the Magnolia Singers and Carolina Mass Choir on Sunday; and closing with The Chinese Folk Dance Company from the Chinese Cultural Center in NYC on Sunday afternoon. All performances are free to the public.
The "Art in Action" of Colorado artist Brian Olsen will be back for a second year and is sponsored by Coldwell Banker Caine. His live performance paintings of rock stars and pop culture icons choreographed to music will take place on the Carolina First Amphitheatre in lower Falls Park and are free to the public. His first performance will immediately follow the Opening Ceremonies at 4pm Friday Apr. 21.
The Peace Center's Main Hall will feature The Greenville Chorale's anniversary performance with the South Carolina All State Choir at 8pm, Saturday, Apr. 22. Tickets can be purchased at the Peace Center Box office. The Peace Center's Gunter Theatre will feature free local performances including Arriving in Indigo City by Carolina Ballet Theatre on Friday evening; The Foothills Philharmonic, Carolina Youth Symphony, and Greenville County Youth Orchestra on Saturday; and The South Carolina Children's Theatre on Sunday.
First Presbyterian Church will host the Chicora Singers on Saturday at 11:30am and a Church Choir festival on Sunday at 3pm, both performances free.
Local Theatres including the Warehouse Theatre, Centre Stage - SC!, and the Greenville Little Theatre will all hold special performances and the Greenville County Museum of Art will feature its Jasper Johns exhibit. The Metropolitan Arts Council will hold an exhibition entitled One Stop Open Studios, featuring works of local artists that participate in its fall artist studio tour event.
The Blue's Café will serve cuisine from 10 local restaurant vendors, will host a stage of the region's best blues musicians, and will be located on South Main Street between Camperdown Way and Augusta Streets just south of the Falls Park entrance.
Kidsphere, Artisphere's Children's area, is sponsored by RBC Centura and will be located on the Bowater Plaza on the far side of Liberty Bridge in Falls Park. It will be open on Saturday and Sunday only and will provide internationally themed craft activities for free to Greenville's youth. This area will include a stage of performances, a face painter, and kid-friendly food and beverages. Kidsphere's own opening ceremonies will take place at 10am on Saturday, Apr. 22 featuring the Drumline from Tanglewood Middle and Grove Elementary.
The Opening Night Gala sponsored by the Cliffs Communities will precede the festival event on Thursday Apr. 20 at 7:30pm. Tickets to this event are $100 each. A private Charles Wadsworth chamber music performance will be held prior to the Opening Night celebration at 6:30pm in the Westin Poinsett's Gold Ballroom. This event is open to Chairman's Circle level donors and sponsors only. Charles Wadsworth, the internationally recognized chamber musician is known regionally for his annual Spoleto Festival USA closing performances held at Middleton place in Charleston, SC.
Artisphere financially supports the local arts community by giving back through partnerships with local arts organizations whereby the local groups provide volunteers for many areas of the festival and, in return, receive a portion of the proceeds from the Blues Café food vendor sales. Participating organizations include: Blue Ridge Arts Council, Carolina Ballet Theatre, Centre Stage - SC!, Chicora Voices, Greenville Chorale, International Ballet, Metropolitan Arts Council, South Carolina Children's Theatre, South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Upstate Visual Arts, and Wits End Poetry.
Artisphere is governed by a 38 member board of directors, is staffed by a full-time executive director, a newly hired visual arts project manager, a partnership with Greenville Events, Inc. which lends seven additional staff-members to assist in carrying out the festival logistics and operations, and further outsourced project managers as needed for the long-weekend festival event.
Artisphere's mission as an annual signature event for Greenville, SC, is to showcase the arts, reflect the area's international flair, encourage economic development and bring awareness to existing local arts programs. The festival provides a diverse menu of experiences that center around the arts, both visual and performing, and Greenville's multicultural offerings to appeal to visitors from around the world, as well as residents throughout the region.
For more information check the Artisphere website at (www.artisphere.us).
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