The Event: 2009 Austin Wine Festival
May 23rd through 25th, Saturday through Monday, Memorial Day Weekend
Uniquely Austin, the three-day Texas wine celebration takes place RAIN OR SHINE! Wineries from Lampasas to New Braunfels and from Fredericksburg to Dripping Springs have flourished from a pioneering few into an internationally awarded and recognized wine region. Designated as the #2 Fastest Growing Wine Destination in the Nation, second only to Napa, according to the Orbitz Insider Index, and the #1 of the best “Places to Go This Summer” by The New York Times, the Austin Wine Festival is the place to be and be seen. This winery-owned festival is unprecedented in its ability to provide direct to consumer wine sales on site. For the first time in Texas wine enthusiasts can purchase wine by the glass, bottle and case on the spot!
While you taste the splendor of the fruits of our wineries’ labors, your kids will enjoy our expanded children’s area that will include outdoor laser tag and mobile video game theater.
Created with the intent to saturate The Live Music Capital of the World one glass at a time, the Austin Wine Festival is designed to be extraordinary, unforgettable and different. Attendees will not find themselves crammed into one large circus big top, but will discover a well-organized trail of individual and spacious winery tents with plenty of room to converse and sample. Wine enthusiasts attendees not only enjoy tasting Texas Hill Country wines, in many cases will have the opportunity to meet the actual wine makers and learn about the process, grape and location of its particular birth. Wine is about the experience and this festival presents enthusiasts with a rare opportunity to purchase wine by the glass, bottle or case directly from the winery itself, practically in their own backyard. 
 
Bang For the Buck: The Organization and it’s Mission
Creating local wine awareness, as well as improving wine esteem, is one of the main goals of the Austin Wine Festival. Wine lovers will delight in the unbelievably diverse and seemingly countless wines that are only improving with quality over time. Many wine lovers are unaware that the Texas Hill Country, which is lovingly shaped by many rivers and rolling knolls, sits just on the western edge of a gorgeous humid subtropical climate that provides gentle winters and long, warm summers making it a mecca for wineries. As for awareness, reaching out to the connoisseurs is just as important as reaching out to different, less predictable crowds. Texas Hill Country Wineries want to create a relationship between all people and Texas wine, which is no longer just your run-of-the-mill elegant dinner decoration but should be a heart-healthy part of your daily life. 
Interested in local and healthy business, The Austin Wine Festival has once again chosen the Austin Farmer Market and Sustainable Food Center as the 2009 beneficiary. This natural partnership gives a nod to the mutual passion between these two organizations about drinking local wines, eating local foods and keeping Texas investment dollars within the local economy.  

For more information visit: www.AustinWineFestival.com

Sally Jacques has had several “aha moments” in her life and career and at least two of them have made her and her dance company, Blue Lapis Light, a must see in Austin.

Her first “aha moment” came while spending a whole week in a New York City window. She realized that bringing her art out of the theater and to the people, she was able to interrupt the drudgery of their daily routines, and in a sense, force them to look at the beauty in the world around them. Construction scaffolding along then Town Lake brought her to the second “aha moment” – 360 degrees of dance.

As artistic director for Blue Lapis Light, Jacques has taken dance to a new dimension in the capitol city and mesmerized Austin with her site-specific aerial dance group. Harnesses, silks and rappelling gear catch the audience’s imagination by angelically suspending the dancers in mid-air against an unexpected background. The stage for Blue Lapis Light is ever-changing; the structured lines of architecture seem to speak to Jacques, almost begging to be juxtaposed with the fluidity of dance.

Very few people attempt what Jacques has produced beautifully over the past 28 years. For that work, she was named “Best Site-Works Artist” in 1995, and “Choreographer of the Air” in 2002, by The Austin Chronicle’s Best of Austin Critics Poll.

Born an activist and trained a dancer, Jacques has found a way to meld her two passions and create a beautiful statement of life. She is not simply bringing art to the streets of Austin; she is giving confidence and an awareness of life to those who are often overlooked. For the past 20 years, Jacques has taught movement and awareness of the body’s ability to at-risk teenagers, senior citizens, the differently-abled and prison inmates.

In recognition for her work and her passion, Jacques was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame in 2007 and nominated for a USA Fellowship Award in 2008.

The Event: Premiere of Impermanence
June 18, 2009. 9:15 p.m. Premiere of Blue Lapis Light’s new show, Impermanence. J.J. Pickle Federal Building 300 E. 8th St. (Enter on the west side of Trinity St., 800 block.) Casual Attire.

Enjoy a spectacular show, meet the artists and indulge in hors d’oeuvres, wine and live music before touring the historic LBJ Suite. Cost: $100 Platinum, $75 Gold. Tickets available at the door or at www.austix.com. (A special gift awaits Platinum guests.)

Bang for the Buck: The Organization and its Mission

Blue Lapis Light is a local site-specific aerial dance group with a mission. Jacques and her group offer works set in a time and place where the evils of this world do not exist. Their work is about coming together as a global community and creating beauty rather than destruction. The name Blue Lapis Light refers to being in-the-moment. “The hope is that audiences can come to see and experience beauty…to feel connected to that beauty and to something greater,” said Jacques.

Once the audience has been entranced by their work, Blue Lapis Light does not simply leave them hanging. The group offers classes and workshops in aerial dance, as well as Youth Taking Flight, an outreach program for Austin’s youth.

Monies from the premiere are put towards artists and crew compensation, production costs, and funding their “Pay What You Can Night.”

http://www.bluelapislight.com

“In aerial dance, there is a big illusion of ease happening,” said Nicole Whitehouse, principal dancer. Achieving proper form in the harnesses is “hard and physically uncomfortable; it goes against your body’s natural inclination, but that is the awe of dance ­— making it look effortless.”

Blue Lapis Light’s 2006 show, Requiem, in which they added life and beauty to the abandoned Intel building made the group a household name in Austin. “It is quite a spectacle what we do,” said Whitehouse, “transforming something utilitarian into a wonderland.”

The architecture of each “stage” plays a very intrinsic role in the choreography. “The performances are not on the buildings,” said Jacques. “The site speaks to me,” and the choreography becomes a collaboration between the building and the dancers.

Blue Lapis Light’s latest show is titled Impermanence, in which performers leap, fly and climb across the edifice of the J.J. Pickle Federal Building, mimicking the recent fall of industries that were once thought invincible. The tension in which the performers find themselves speaks to the fragility of these times, but the balletic movement and continuance of form express the possibility of continual forward movement in any situation. Combined with lights and music, the dancers seemingly pull the viewer through the air, whispering, “There is beauty and significance in each moment — look for it and celebrate it!”

May 2
Austin Children’s Museum’s Imaginarium Fundraiser
Historic Browning Hanger at Mueller
May 9
Austin Museum of Art’s ART BALL XIII
May 9
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Promise Ball
Westin La Cantera in San Antonio
June 19 – 21 & 24 – 28
Impermanence
J.J. Pickle Federal Building
Time: 9:15pm
Tickets: $25, $20 general admission, $15 seniors and students

For more information, visit
www.bluelapislight.org