Guest post, photos, and video by the Hawthorne Hawkman. Photo of the Hawkman by "Ranty."
Earlier this summer, I was told about an exciting new arts space opening in south Minneapolis, the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. But being deaf in one ear, the first few times I'd heard about it, I thought they said "finer arts," and I'd just heard wrong. Finer Arts Center...ho, hum.
For once, my ears didn't deceive me, and it really WAS "Fire arts." In one respect, though, this ribbon-cutting ceremony was LESS exciting than others. Despite the presence of our Mayor and several city council members, nobody tried to disrupt this one. Maybe in the future we'll give speakers a microphone and a blowtorch and THEN see who wants to interrupt them. Nah...SOMEBODY would file a lawsuit.
Later in the evening, I took some very cool photos. I used a setting on my camera that kept the exposure open for a while so that it would capture the movement of the performers. This experiment turned out surprisingly well...
So well in fact, that I found it impossible to pick out photos I liked best, so I'm putting most all of them up.
Now if that wasn't cool enough, we had hooping going on too:
Of course, the HIGHLIGHT of the evening was captured in THIS photo:
Or maybe not. Hey, I know that unless I shave my legs, put on a dress, a wig, and some killer boots, I'm just not going to look as great as Connie Nompelis when I'm hooping. And admittedly, I'm not sure what to do with my hands. But do all of the pictures of me hooping have to look so...dorky? I was doing some fairly impressive things too, keeping the hoop going at my ankles for quite a while. And there's no photo of that?
On the bright side, a still shot creates the impression that I can keep the hoop going for longer than 30 seconds. (And I can. Really.) Take a look at the above photo. Now look away for a moment. Are you back? See, I'm still hooping. Go and make yourself a roast beef sandwich or a chef salad or something. Me, I'm still here, hooping like a maniac. Pretty impressive, huh? I thought so.
1 comment:
I was very glad to see some NoMi peeps turn out for the CAFAC event. It is not often that I see Northsiders come down and join in our festivities - likewise, since announcing to my "SoMi" neighbors that I am moving Over North, by their reactions you would think that I was moving to China - never to be seen again. N MPLS has always been separate and divided from the rest of the city, not only by the freeways, but cultural and socioeconomic barriers as well. Lets mix things up. It was heartening to see a NoMi peep taking pleasure in a South MPLS event - we need to cross (and break) those barriers more often. While some of the fear of N MPLS was rooted in actual crime (before it began drastically dropping), I believe the actual fear was disproportionate due to that N MPLS has always been "separate" "unknown" and "other." In the last couple of weeks I have now seen SoMi peeps at a Northside event and now NoMi peeps at a Southside event. Keep crossing the barriers. I'm lovin it!
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