As I gazed out from the balcony of 617 Texas St, the Robinson Film Center (it opens the first week of May), John Grindley explained that within months a trolley will connect the parking lots at the La Boardwalk and several Shreveport sites. The upper Texas St stop on the trolley loop is on a corner between Artspace and the RFC, which is across the street from the Southern Museum of Art.
Park one place and take a grand tour of the old river town. That makes a visit to downtown Shreveport a spanking new proposition.
But what if you give the public even more than cool facilities and an easy tour? What I've found exciting during happy hours in London, Portland, Paris and New Orleans is streetlife enlivened by musicians.
Leaving RFC, I saw the group of musicians above blowing their horns in front of the Strand Theater.
If these fellows, who said they attend Huntington High, are hired to play in front of the RFC, SUMAS, Artspace or the Multicultural Center of the South, then Shreveport will begin to fulfill its cultural mission for the future.
Art and movies are only part of the tourism game. And getting people from suburban Shreveport to patronize downtown sites requires the energy of a tourism blitz.
Popcorn, movies, paintings, poetry, r&b, cocktails, supper, retail, yes.
But, on the street, give us something extra, like jazz.
3 comments:
oooooo-weeeeeeeee! Now I feel a pulse.
In truth, these student performers were getting ready for the Yazzy concert inside the Strand. Theater of the Performing Arts director Gloria Gipson annually pairs students and professionals in a jazz performance at the Strand.
Yet I stand by my suggestion. I remember the night that Pam Atchison hired sax player Steve Allen to play outside Artspace during a reception. Twas righteous.
I'm all for non amplified street performers. Plugging folks in just ruins my romantic ideas of street musicians. Dixie Chicks started that way in Austin.
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