In August, when summer is in full flower, but hints of September and autumn start to claim one's attention, many are still thinking about summer vacation plans. If this describes you, and you are anywhere near the Great Lakes, there are many possibilities for a quick getaway that combines beach and water activities by day, with exceptional cultural experiences in the evening. Music and drama festivals abound throughout region.
If you have time for a 'real' vacation i.e ten days or more, your trip could include a number of the large, long-established, well known festival celebrations of culture. Classic and contemporary drama, classical music, Celtic music, and a festival of ballet and modern dance in Chicago all await you in August in the Great Lakes.
Visit Three Great Lakes and See World-Famous Drama in Ontario
Every year the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, on Lake Ontario, produces ten to twelve plays by George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, presented in four theatres. That adds up to nearly 800 performances, enjoyed by an audience approaching 300,000. You could be one of them this year, and watch the festival's esteemed acting ensemble present Candida, On the Rocks, Heartbreak House, or My Fair Lady, or see one of the seven non-Shaw productions. The festival is celebrating its 50th season this year.
Niagara on the Lake, the community that hosts the Shaw Festival, is a summer vacation destination on its own, one of the oldest small cities in Canada; it is also considered one of the most charming, with elegant houses and gardens on tree-lined streets. It is located on the southwest shore of Lake Ontario where the Niagara River flows into the lake. Niagara Falls is twenty minutes to the south. ?Directly across from Lake Ontario, is Toronto, which is about thirty miles due north.
If there is one drama experience to rival or surpass the Shaw Festival, Ontario has that too. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, a mere nine years older than the Shaw Festival, prides itself on setting the standard for classical theatre in North America. From its very first production in 1953, this festival created excitement with its efforts to produce Shakespeare 's plays on an open stage or "under stage conditions for which they had been written," according to former Festival archivist, James R. Aikens.
The town of Stratford is not on any lake, but is nicely positioned between three large ones. Toronto is spread out along the north shore of Lake Ontario just a two hour car ride to the east, while an hour drive to the west brings you to charming beach towns on Lake Huron. If you head north from Stratford for approximately two hours you will come to the rocky Bruce Peninsula that encloses Lake Huron's beautiful Georgian Bay, or enjoy a shorter drive south to the sandy beaches of Lake Erie.
The Peninsula Music Festival and Irish Fest on Lake Michigan
Over on Lake Michigan, you can combine your beach vacation with music. In Door County, WI, the Peninsula Music Festival is an orchestral tradition dating back to 1953, the same year that the Shakespeare Festival began. It continues every August with professional musicians from major symphonies and rising young guest soloists. This year's soloists have included cellist Wendy Warner, pianist Stewart Goodyear, and eighteen year-old violin prodigy, Caroline Goulding.
For a complete change of pace, travel down Lake Michigan's shore to Milwaukee where the city's Summerfest grounds, adjacent to the lake, will ring non-stop for four days, with the insistent rhythms of the fiddles, tin whistles, uilleann pipes, and bodhrans of Irish music and step dances. It's Irish Fest, August 18-21. Milwaukee's festival of Celtic culture has earned accolades from the Smithsonian Institution's National Folk Life Program, which called it "the largest and best Irish cultural event in North America." It's been growing since 1981 when it premiered with little but high hopes.
A Week of Free Dance Performances in Chicago
At the bottom of Lake Michigan, and also the bottom of the August calendar, there is one last festival for your consideration. While the Chicago Dancing Festival may not have the decades-long track record of the other events described here, it is undeniably big. This festival is celebrating its fifth year in 2011, and in its short history it has brought some of the biggest names in the ballet and modern dance world to Chicago for free concerts that have been presented to tens of thousands .
The San Francisco Ballet, The Martha Graham Dance Company, Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris, Azure Barton and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater are just some of the amazing dancers and companies that have performed at the Harris Theatre and the outdoor Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park the last week in August.
The 2011 Chicago Dancing Festival has expanded to five days of performances beginning Tuesday, August 23 at various indoor venues, culminating with the outdoor performance at the Pritzker Pavilion, Saturday, August 27, featuring the Paul Taylor Company, Ballet West, the Joffrey Ballet, artists from the New York City Ballet, and even more.
Kathlin F. Sickel - Reading and writing in print and online. So much to uncover and report. Join me; let's see what we can discover.
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