While you were (hopefully) warm and toasty inside your house on Monday, Chambana Weather's Andrew Pritchard was out and about recording his observations throughout today. Take a look:
In honor of Black History Month, Illinois Theatre is sharing a video of their September 2020 Harlem Renaissance Project, created, at the time, by junior Studio Actors.
According to the recent announcement:
"The Harlem Renaissance Project, in which they explored poems from the extraordinary African American cultural movement a century before. This was a cherished experience and served the class’ mission of inclusion, decolonization of the canon and expression of our passion and commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement. This video is being shared as an offering from Illinois Theatre honoring Black History Month for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s community and beyond.
Adhering to thorough safety standards and COVID protocols, the poems were recited and recorded in The Krannert Center’s Tryon Festival Theatre."
Enjoy the performance on Vimeo.
Top image from the Illinois Theatre Facebook page
Champaign Central High School will be adding fields for soccer, band, and softball as part of their North Fields Project, which is slated to begin construction in the spring of 2022.
This video lays out the plans and feedback given by the community last month:
Image from Champaign Unit 4 Schools Facebook page.
Kenna Mae Reiss' project, Sweetmelk, released this video for their song "Living Room", recorded at James Treichler's Wave Upon Wave studio. The track is one of three that will be featured on Living Room EP, which appears to be on the way in the near future. The video was edited and engineered by Treichler, and you can watch it below.
Although this interview came in the middle of last year, check out Sal's conversation with Sweetmelk here.
Top image from the video.
New year, same pandemic, but Rose Bowl Tavern has a few things lined up as far as streaming live music goes since it is still too cold out to host outdoor performances.
Here's the schedule, and tune in at Rose Bowl's YouTube Channel, or on their Facebook page.
Sunday, January 17th
4 p.m. — Sweetmelk
7 p.m. — So Long June
Tuesday, January 19th
7 p.m. — Folkin' Tuesday with Chicago Farmer
Friday, January 29th
7 p.m. — Dave Pride & the East Side 5
Saturday, January 30th
7 p.m. — Mobe'
Sunday, January 31st
7 p.m. — Soul on Sunday
Top image by Anna Longworth.
As you may or may not have noticed, we're taking a bit of a break here at SP to enjoy some much-needed downtime. That said, there's still opportunities to post about things here and there, especially when related to the holidays.
The 95-years-young Dick Van Dyke grew up in Danville, and the other day, he posted this video on his Facebook page about the holidays — specifically, Christmastime back home. For those of you that are familiar with Danville history, this will serve as a nice piece of nostalgia for you, and when it is served up in a bite sized two minute video from DVD, that makes it even sweeter.
95 years old and still interneting, gotta love it.
Top image from Facebook.
Artist Jason Mack has completed his project to build the world's tallest glass Christmas tree, and you can visit it at the corner of Neil and Washington in Champaign.
Check out the video below:
Top image from Jason Mack's Instagram page.
Grovestone shared a video on Instagram of someone making "Grinch Fur" a.k.a green cotton candy, and it is very soothing to watch.
I'm not terribly fond of cotton candy myself, but I bet there are lots of kids that would think this is a wonderful gift. You can find all sorts of foodie gift ideas on their website.
Top photo from Grovestone Facebook page.
The U of I is now processing one out of every 50 COVID-19 tests in the U.S. A stat that is pretty amazing, but also a little depressing. We need this testing availability nationwide.
Here is the segment:
In COVID-19 era fashion, the Champaign Cypher Series put together this series of performances from area emcees for their recent streaming event, Danksgiving, which took place last weekend. In case you weren't able to tune in, you can still check out the performances through part one, two, and three.
Be on the lookout for more in the future from Champaign Cypher, as they have a few other events being worked on at the moment.
Top image from the Facebook event page.
Part of the fun of Jason Mack Chistmas Tree Build project is following along on Facebook and Instagram. According to his latest posts, things are really starting to heat up.
This year's annual Parade of Lights was virtual, and featured shoebox "floats" created by businesses and organizations. If you missed it, don't worry, it's available for viewing on Champaign Center Partnership's YouTube channel. The whole thing is really kind of adorable, and such a creative pivot in this year where all the things are different. Watch the video, then vote for your favorite float by December 4th.
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