The Festival Issue: Piccolo Spoleto
May 22 – June 7, 2015
Sunset Serenade (image: Paul Cheney)
words: Rachel McDermott
Piccolo Spoleto Festival was created to complement its international sister festival, Spoleto Festival USA, by highlighting regional artists and performers. Over the 17 days, more than 500 performing, literary, and visual arts events will take place. Piccolo Spoleto allows for local and regional community to be involved in the artistic and cultural takeover of the city. The festival makes arts events in historic downtown Charleston as well as the surrounding areas accessible with affordable ticket prices.
Piccolo Spoleto opens May 22 at 8 pm with a free performance by the Charleston Symphony Orchestra on the steps of the breathtaking Customs House. Marion Square hosts Saturday’s free Family Day featuring the popular Atlanta street band, Seed & Feed Marching Abominable, doing performances and workshops. For the duration of Piccolo Spoleto, Marion Square will be home to the Outdoor Art Exhibition. Over 100 SC artists will set up canopied tents to display their original works as well as interact with guests and give demonstrations.
Marion Square during Piccolo Spoleto (image courtesy City of Charleston)
Piccolo includes both professionals and youth from the arts community. The South Carolina Arts Alliance will host the “Rising Stars Piccolo Spoleto 2015” where artistically gifted students ages 9 to 18 are given the opportunity to perform at St. Matthew’s Auditorium.
The Piccolo Spoleto Festival Finale is a free, family-friendly event on June 6, and it will be a day full of music, food vendors, kids activities, and fireworks at Hampton Park—an incredible park, but one that visitors rarely discover since it’s north of the traditional tourist districts. Piccolo Spoleto continues to expand each year in order to involve more communities of the peninsula and surrounding areas.
Annex Dance Company (image: William Long)
A Piccolo Day
10 am — Catch an organ recital in one of Charleston’s many church sanctuaries. These performances bring the community into historic buildings that they may not have the opportunity to visit otherwise, and showcases the church organ, which is a work of art in itself.
4 pm — Festival of Churches & Synagogues choral concert
6:30 pm — Sundown Poetry Series in the courtyard in the Dock Street Theatre
These free events are fun and allow festivalgoers to drop into a great event between Spoleto performances.
Piccolo Indoors
Local art galleries and theatres will host co-programmed Piccolo exhibitions and performances. The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art will present Alyson Shotz’s Force of Nature with sculpture and site-specific installations. Theatre companies like Pure Theatre, What If? Productions, and Footlight Players will stage new productions or revivals of hits from their past seasons throughout the festival.
Annex Dance Company will create a new, site specific performance in the City Gallery at Waterfront Park that plays on the space and form of the gallery and its incredible view of Charleston Harbor.
Sang-Mi Yoo
Redux Contemporary Art Center welcomes Sang-Mi Yoo, a visual artist who focuses on installations and print making to create work inspired by contradictions present in everyday life.
Look for:
The full program for Piccolo Spoleto events will be announced in late April.
Advanced ticket sales will begin in early May.
For more information visit piccolospoleto.com.
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