Some people dance in the rain

The MidPoint Music Festival (a midwestern version of the South by Southwest festival with 200+ bands performing all over town) kicked off Thursday night in pouring rain on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati.

The unfortunately rather sparse crowd was surprised when about 200 people connected with Cincinnati's arts organization, including Alex, erupted into what's being called a "splash dance."

I had wanted to do this, but when I looked at the rehearsal videos, I was a little worried about my knees, so bowed out.  As it turned out, I had a symphony dress rehearsal that night, so was unavailable.



Here's what the Fine Arts Fund had to say about it:

Cincinnati, which embraces the arts like no place we know, erupted in a mass flash dance celebration on Thursday evening.

It had been raining, but stopped just long enough for the first ever splash dance surprise. Dancers amazed the onlookers at the music festival kickoff event when they suddenly started to dance after the first band finished.

Hundreds of people from all parts of the metro area and all walks of life volunteered their time and resources to plan the surprise over the past eight weeks.

It started with just a few people from theater, dance, music, museums, and the Fine Arts Fund staff, and grew to include hundreds of Cincinnati residents.

Even though the initial invitation didn’t say what the participants would be doing, hundreds of people signed on to show their enthusiasm for the arts. We successfully kept the secret for weeks because we all shared the goal of touching others in our community with the unexpectedness of the event.

It is amazing how the arts reach everybody in every part of our city. We started with a small group, and before you knew it, we were dancing with people who live from Mason to Covington, and all over the region. The volunteer dancers included everyone from soap executives to young children.

Great big thanks to Scott and Riann and everyone at Lightborne, which produced the video, and contributed in so many ways to making this a fun event that lives on in this video so many others can share with friends and family!

The Creative Team -- volunteers from large and small arts organizations across the region who helped the Fine Arts Fund organize the dance -- spent one afternoon listening to local musicians and choosing the music together. More thanks go to these local bands for contributing the music.

Freeze

Cincinnati has succumbed to another episode of freezing rain, exactly 363 days since the last time the city shut down for ice. Most of my office is working from home today.

The past weekend featured the Fine Arts Fund sampler, a weekend of over 100 performances/exhibitions by the many arts groups that benefit from the largesse of the city's citizens who contribute millions to the fund each year.

On Saturday, I was privileged to attend "Origami Meets the Price is Right," Jonathan Heart's delightful show for children, at the Cincinnati Art Museum, which was followed by "Long Lost Stories," a production of the Madcap Puppets. A quick tour of the Cincinnati Wing of the museum followed, as my companion had not yet been there. The Rookwood pottery collection, as well as the marvelous furniture hand-carved by 19th Century Cincinnati women were the highlights of the visit.

Sunday's performane of the Cincinnati May Festival Youth Chorus and the May Festival Chamber Choir went well. We (the Chamber Choir) sang 8 of the 15 pieces of Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil.

Tonight the full May Festival Chorus will rehearse John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls, for which Adams won the Pulitzer prize. It is a reminiscence of those lost in the devastation of New York's World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Adams will conduct the chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a performance of the work on February 22 and 23 at Cincinnati's Music Hall.

The piece is moving and will be devastating for the audience. The text is taken from memories of the lost, printed in the New York Times, and from posters seen on the street in the weeks following the tragedy.

It will be especially poignant for many members of the Chorus and Orchestra, who performed Benjamin Britten's War Requiem at Carnegie Hall 3 weeks after September 11. That performance, planned months in advance of the concert, left the hall in near silence upon its completion. Some of the audience members could be heard crying. It had been only two days since American forces had invaded Afghanistan.

This just in: the word has arrived that tonight's rehearsal has been cancelled due to the weather, and our director, Robert Porco, halfway here from Cleveland, is turning around and heading home. Next week will be a busy one, with extra rehearsals so that we can work with the Cincinnati Children's Choir before Mr. Adams arrives.