A truly superior festival

PRESS RELEASE

LAKE SUPERIOR STATE UNIVERSITY

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LSSU Superior Festival returns for seventh year

Sault Ste. Marie, MI - Superior Festival, a program of workshops, lectures and performances around a central theme, is returning to Lake Superior State University for its seventh consecutive season, Oct. 11-13.

The three-day performance event and colloquium, "Storytelling, Narrative and Community," is hosted by Gary Balfantz Ph.D., chair of the LSSU Dept. of English and Communication and coordinator of the drama program.

Performances are open to students, LSSU employees and the community.

As usual, the festival will draw performers and guests from around the country.

Featured guest artists and scholars this year include: Laura Facciponti, University of North Carolina, Asheville; Peninnah Schram, Stern College of Yeshiva University, New York; Gordon Nakagawa, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota; and Julie Williams, White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

Each of the featured guests will provide general critiques for solo and group performance offerings and provide feedback sessions for the performers.

Nakagawa, director of Diversity Integration at Hamline, will make two presentations while on campus.

He'll be featured at the monthly University Forum, where he'll present "Location, Location, Location; Decentering Diversity, 'Home,' and Homogeneity."

The program, which includes lunch for $5, is open to the public from noon-1 p.m. on Oct. 11 in the Cisler Center Crow's Nest.

Nakagawa will also present "In the Wake of 9/11 and 2/19: Performing (In)Justice in Stories of Japanese American Internment," during the festival.

The presentation explores the convergence between post-9/11 public discourse and post-2/19 stories of the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.

"Specific areas of discussion include the rationality of the 'preventive paradigm,' racial profiling, surveillance, and disciplining of the body politic; and implications for understanding public testimony as the performance of discursive (in)justice," Nakagawa said.

Nakagawa notes that Feb. 19, 1941 is the date of the issuance of Presidential Executive Order 9066, which set into motion the wartime exclusion and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans.

Julie Williams of White Bear Lake will present "Story Storage: Story-Catching in Three Dimensions," during the conference.

An author and artist, Williams will share her collaborative process of capturing life stories in three-dimensional mixed-media art pieces.

She said her artwork builds on other lifelong processes, habits and disciplines, including keeping a journal, writing poems, performing and creative writing.

Balfantz said a special feature this year will include two "storytelling concerts" entitled, "Building Bridges to Dreams," by Laura Facciponti, and "Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another," by Peninnah Schram.

Both of these programs are open to the public, with Facciponti performing at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 11 and Schram performing at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 12.

Admission is $5 for the public and LSSU employees; $2 for students with ID.

Schram will lead two workshops during the festival, both titled, “Traveling in Time.”

Both are participatory workshops that work with finding and telling personal and family stories.

Facciponti will lead two workshops, also, focusing on "Alba Emoting," which she calls "a physiological approach to use of emotions and body in performance."

"This year's Superior Festival will consist of a variety of fun and cultivatable workshops, lectures, and performance illustrations," said Balfantz. "The festival continues to have a positive and profound impact in regard to increasing theatrical knowledge and performance experience among our students and anyone else who attends."

Balfantz said festival events have also opened doors for students, faculty and community members who may be interested in learning more about performing arts.

"Superior Festival not only provides students with knowledge and experience about the performing arts, but it has constructed a bridge for current LSSU students majoring or minoring in communication or theatre," Balfantz said. "They fashion social connections with accomplished artists and scholars in the performing arts and with peers who share common interests."

For more information, contact Balfantz at 906-635-2278 or [email protected].

Performances are open to the public.

A $35 fee, which includes lunches, is required to participate in the workshops.

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