After completing their second week of performing and outreach opportunities in Nauvoo and outlying towns, the International Folk Dance Ensemble traveled to Milwaukee, where they had the opportunity to perform a choreographic MFA thesis dance work by Jeanette Geslison at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The group performed at the majestic Bader Concert Hall on the UWM campus in front of dance professors, dance graduate students, friends, and family. Many of the audience members returned the next night when the ensemble performed at the Peck Pavilion at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, a covered outdoor venue located by the downtown Milwaukee River Walk. They performed the last tour show for a sold-out crowd, and had a particularly enthusiastic response from the local folk dance community.
Highlights of the week include:
- Performing the final show on the Nauvoo outdoor stage for over 1,000 enthusiastic audience members.
- Cleaning the Carl Sandburg Auditorium in Carthage as a service project following a well-received outreach performance.
- Visiting Carthage Jail, after which the ensemble’s musicians played hymns just outside the jail, as many visitors solemnly stopped and listened.
- Presenting an outreach performance in Macomb, which drew many enthusiastic audience members, including an entire children’s day care school. After the performance the children crowded around the dancers for a “kicking the hat off the stick” contest. Dancer Cameron King and two musicians also initiated a fun clogging lesson and dance party.
- Dancing in a workshop in Milwaukee with the Sumadija Serbian Dance Ensemble and members of the Polish, Ukrainian, and Caledonian dance ensembles.
Source: Performing Arts Management