Theater & Dance

11am – AMEBA Acrobatic and Aerial Dance Company

11:30am – Suzuki-Orff School of Music

12pm – Jeff Semmerling

12:30pm – Magician Michael Burke

1pm – Chicago Moving Company

2pm – Arrc Ballet School

2:30pm – Flaming Hula Hoops with Jane Albright and Hoopily Hoops Pete!

3pm – Spiritwing Dance Ensemble

4pm – Trapdoor Theater 

4:30pm – Stick and Move Dance Crew - Hip Hop with Monternez “Monty” Rezell

5pm – Playright Lonna Kingsbury does an original play especially for her old neighborhood – Bucktown/Wicker Park!

6pm – World Dance by Terran Doehrer with music by Jutta & the Hi-Dukes

Sunday, August 28th

11am – Sheila Donovan presents Poet-Tea in the Park!

11:30am – Joe the Balloon Guy will twist his way into your heart with his delightful free balloon creations fun for the whole family!

12pm – Jeff Semmerling

12:30pm – Mike Land

1pm – Ensemble Espanole Spanish Dance Youth Company

2pm – Spirit Wing Dance Ensemble

3pm – Djalaal Middle Eastern Dance

3:30pm – Reveries in Motion Contemporary Dance!

4pm - Trapdoor Theater

4:30pm – Monty Rezell

5pm – Playright Lonna Kingsbury does an original one-woman play especially for her old neighborhood – Bucktown/Wicker Park!

6pm – Daniel Guidara’s awesome Tai Chi workshop – learn poetry in motion!

Effie Mihopoulos, Theater & Dance Coordinator, at the 2009 Bucktown Arts Fest.

If you had the chance to meet her, Effie Mihopoulos was hard to forget. A warmhearted, enthusiastic human, she had an effusive and effervescent spirit.

When she passed away on January 14, 2010, the world lost a poet, publisher, writer, dance critic, theatre critic, anti-war activist and overall promoter of the arts. A muse. And the much-loved Theater & Dance Coordinator for the Bucktown Arts Fest.

Effie was a pioneer in the Chicago arts scene and beyond. She loved art in all its forms, though she had a special soft spot in her heart for dance. As a young woman, Effie studied dance and eventually started her own dance magazine Salome in 1975. Ten years later, her publishing company, Ommation Press, published Cornelius Eadie’s second poetry collection, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, which received the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in New York. It was the first time such a prestigious award had been given to a book from a small, independent press.

Effie was a member of Chicago’s prestigious Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee, also working with the Chicago Artist’s Coalition and the Chicago Sun-Times. In the 1990s, she coordinated a poetry performance arts series known as “Babel,” funded by grants from the Illinois Arts Council. Effie’s published books of poetry include The Moon Cycle, Pastel Words, and Languid Love Lyrics. Her poetry, fiction and art have been published in over 200 small press magazines in the U.S. and Europe. She was nominated 5 times for Pushcart Prize and was a valuable contributor to the Women and Labor History Project. She was a DJ and cultural commentator for NEIU’s 88.3 FM, interviewing many artists across the disciplines.

Today, Effie’s work has been graciously archived at the Newberry Library for future generations. While her artistic accomplishments were great, it is not why our hearts hang heavy. For my own family, she was “Auntie Mame,” who would whisk myself and my children off to a performance with a moment’s notice, where we would be transported into other worlds.

To honor her memory, the Bucktown Arts Fest has created both a scholarship award and a Best in Show: Theater & Dance prize which will help her legacy live on for years to come. – Cathleen Schandelmeier

The Effie Award Scholarship - Leonard Perez from Ensemble Espanol

The Effie Award for Best in Show - Monty Rezell & Jonathan St. Clair of the Stick and Move Dance Crew

The Effie Award Scholarship - Leonard Perez from Ensemble Espanol

The Effie Award for Best in Show - Monty and Jonathan of The Stick and Move Dance Crew

2010 

The Effie Award Scholarship - Abigail Ventura from Ensemble Espanol

The Effie Award for Best in Show - Chicago Moving Company with Nana Shineflug

On the Accessibility of Apparitions By Effie Mihopoulos

There is a straightforward way of doing everything,

going from point a to b.

How many times do you follow the right path,

how many times do you make the right decision?

If you play your cards right

Every hand can be a card trick,

a magic act.

Instead of a progression through a hallway

of open doors,

you will find yourself passing through

a succession of walls,

dissolving onto the other side

as if it were a filmy curtain

that you gently pushed aside.

You will gradually find yourself

becoming a ghost

of your former self.

A translucent scrim to be stared through,

like at a tragic opera,

or a ballet blanc.

It’s so much easier to travel as an apparition

than not.

With so many conveniences at your beck and call.

It makes the trip from point a to b

so much more accessible.

How many times will you count the ways

in which the roads vary or disappear,

in which the walls become transparencies

of what used to be?

How many times before your ghost considers

its genius to walk through thin air

and parlay it into a bargaining effort

to get from point b to c?