Students cap off reopening

On the final day of Memorial Hall's gala opening weekend, students and the University community poured into a renovated venue for a free day of entertainment called "Carolina Performs."

The daylong event showcased an array of University students performing everything from ballroom dancing to hip hop.

As producer and UNC alumnus Casey Molino Dunn rushed around the building to ensure that all the acts made it backstage for curtain call, Memorial Hall's marketing manager, Jennifer Smith, greeted patrons in the lobby.

"Memorial Hall has a long- standing tradition of student performers," Smith said, pointing out that TV legend and UNC alumnus Andy Griffith, who spoke at the opening events, got his start on the Memorial Hall stage.

"We wanted the community to know that students are just as important to the arts community at UNC as the big performers," she said.

"Because you never know - one of them might be another Tony Bennett or Itzhak Perlman."

Don Luse, director of the Student Union, said organizers wanted to focus one day of the opening weekend on students.

Originally, Luse and the other organizers wanted to host a famous performer who would be of particular interest to students, he said.

When that failed, they decided to let students showcase their own talents.

Junior Alison Grimme was one of them. She performed with the ModernExtension Dance Company and said she signed up soon after learning about the event.

"We signed up because it's kind of an honor to help christen the new theater," she said.

Greeted by an informal atmosphere markedly different from that of Friday and Saturday when Bennett and Perlman played the hall, patrons entered and left the auditorium during set changes between acts.

Frank Fearrington, 78, and his wife Jennette Fearrington, 73, of Chapel Hill, attended the event with friends.

They came to watch a few of the student acts but their main reason for attending was to see the renovations to the building, said Frank Fearrington, whose father was once a custodian at Memorial Hall.

A former student at UNC, he reminisced about Memorial Hall's younger days, when Robert House, the UNC Chancellor from 1945 to 1957, performed on stage.

"He was a great harmonica player," Fearrington said. His wife's face brightened with similar nostalgia.

"This building has a lot of memories," she added.

 

Contact the A&E Editor at artsdesk@unc.edu.