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To editors: if you use this article, please consider running it under the following byline. The writer is a journalism student/intern at housatonic community college. No compensation is expected.

For more information, contact JOHN FAVRET AT 203-332-5116

HCC COURTYARD FESTIVAL TO TAKE PLACE MAY 4TH

BY MIKE RUSSO

BRIDGEPORT – Housatonic Community College’s outdoor courtyard will become alive with music, dance, and street performers May 4 during the 6th annual Courtyard Festival.

Visitors to the event will experience the sights and sounds of the student’s diversity and creativity in action. The celebration will showcase the talents of students from various clubs and will feature street performers, sidewalk artists, fashion divas, and musicians.

An ethnic-style, carnival-like fashion show will launch the days’ festivities. The show will feature a Caribbean, Brazilian, and Indian feel. “It will be fresh,” said HCC student and fashion show director, Suzette Henry. “It will have fun bright comfortable colors, the girls will be wearing white skirts colorful tops, and will have a fantasy type atmosphere,” she said.

There will be modern dancing integrated with the fashion show, as well as a Brazilian style belly dancer. “There’s going to be glitter and bright colors,” said Henry.

Musical entertainment will include performances by the Brazilian sounds of “Mikata,” as well as performances by the HCC music club. HCC art professor and event coordinator, John Favret said, “There are a lot of talented students here, and this gives them an opportunity to showcase their skills.”

Theater professor Geoff Sheehan’s acting students have been working on a performance especially for the festival entitled The One and Only, or It’s a Man.

The “Class Act Theater” made up of Acting II students created an original improvisational comedy based on Commedia del ‘Arte, developed in the 15th   century. “They (the students) developed comic bits, or Lazzi’s,” said Sheehan.

 It is a scenario they wrote themselves,” he continued, “It is going to be a lot of fun.” 

Amidst the dancing, acting, music, and artistry will be HCC’s “resident sculptor” Stan Vogel. Since January of this year, Vogel has been chipping away at a 3000 pound piece of marble that originated on a mountainside in Danby, Vermont.

“It all started with about 200 photographs of a model here at the college, and she became my muse,” quipped Vogel, a retired computer analyst and current HCC art student. 

Vogel, a non-traditional student, began painting when he was sixty, and began sculpting only last year. Vogel says he will be using “rifflers,” file-like tools that are used to smooth the marble sculpture.

Because Vogel is not using any power tools, he anticipates the project will take about 2 years to complete. “It is a pacing change from our world today. This is very different,” he said.   

The Courtyard Festival, which will take place between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., is open to the public. Popcorn and Pizza will be served throughout the day.

With an eight -year old campus in the heart of Connecticut’s largest city, Housatonic is one of the country’s fastest-growing public community colleges. Since it moved to the new downtown campus in 1997, Housatonic’s enrollment has increased 77 percent. According to the most recent statistics released by the Washington D.C.- based American Association of Community Colleges, Housatonic was the Northeast’s second fastest-growing community college and its fastest-growing in terms of full time students.

In response to increased enrollments and changing workplace needs both regionally and nationally, Housatonic has increased the number of programs offered from 43 to 63 since moving to its new campus.

The college is located in downtown Bridgeport one block from the Arena at Harbor Yard.

Mike Russo of Monroe is a journalism intern at Housatonic Community College.