Last modified: Wednesday, August 2, 2006
IU Day at Indiana State Fair to include music, activities and pep rallies
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 2, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The forecast at the Indiana State Fair will be "Red Hot" next Thursday (Aug. 10), when Indiana University takes center stage at the 150th edition of this treasured Hoosier tradition. More than 50 interactive exhibits, health information from the IU School of Medicine and other IU schools and departments, and three pep rallies will highlight IU Day.
IU's Moveable Feast of the Arts program, which has showcased university cultural resources across the state, is supporting many of the 25 performances by 200 faculty, students, staff and alumni from across the university. Performers will include those from the acclaimed IU Jacobs School of Music and the theatre departments at IU's Bloomington and Kokomo campuses.
The university is inviting the more than 240,000 IU alumni living in Indiana to wear cream and crimson on IU Day and participate in a parade beginning at 6:30 p.m. Activities will be continuous from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and most will take place on IU Boulevard, located next to the Farm Bureau Building by the Gate 12 entrance.
"As Hoosiers, we all take pride in the Indiana State Fair. It reminds us of so many things that make our state such a terrific place to live and work," said IU President Adam W. Herbert. "I urge all Hoosiers, and especially our alumni, students and their families, to attend the fair on this special day to see all that Indiana University has to offer."
Ken Beckley, president and chief executive officer of the IU Alumni Association, added, "IU alumni are proud of their alma mater and will be pleased that the thousands of persons who attend the State Fair on August 10 will learn more about the marvels of our institution. IU Day will be a source of pride for our alumni."
David Baker and the IU Summer Music Festival Jazz Orchestra will perform at a special free concert Aug. 8 to celebrate the fair's 150th anniversary.
Herbert will be joined at the pep rallies by IU Football Coach Terry Hoeppner, Miss Indiana (and Miss IU) Betsy Uschkrat, Clifford the Big Red Dog, IUPUI Chancellor Charles Bantz, the IU Marching Hundred, the IU and IUPUI cheerleaders, and other special guests. Pep rallies will begin at 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Expo Hall Street. Michael McRobbie, interim provost of IU Bloomington, will be grand marshal of the parade.
Classical, jazz and rhythm and blues musical performances will take place continuously on two stages near the IU exhibits.
Also being heard again after being refurbished will be the 32-whistle IU Calliope, which was built in 1924 and formerly was played on the IUB Department of Theatre and Drama's Majestic, the last showboat to ply the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Many will remember it from IU sports and alumni events since the 1970s.
IU also will have a presence at a special opening event on Aug. 8 to celebrate the State Fair's 150th anniversary. Indiana Living Legend David Baker, distinguished professor of music at IU, and the IU Summer Music Festival Jazz Orchestra will perform at a free concert that evening. Baker and his IU jazz faculty colleagues handpicked a roster of primarily IU graduates, all of whom have gone on to extremely successful careers in performance, teaching or recording -- and often all three.
They will be followed by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Grammy-winning vocalist Sandi Patty. The concert will be followed by "Night Glow," an illumination of the colorful hot air balloons at the fair. Complimentary printable tickets for the concert, which will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Grandstand, are available online at https://www.in.gov/statefair/fair/entertain/sandipatty.pdf.
Many activities, performances, exhibits and giveaways are planned on IU Boulevard every day throughout the fair's run -- Aug. 9-20 -- from presenters such as faculty and staff from IUPUI, the Kelley School of Business, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, School of Medicine, School of Fine Arts, School of Education, Jacobs School of Music and Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. Also, Traditional Arts Indiana -- a partnership between IU's Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and the Indiana Arts Commission -- will present the Indiana State Fair Fiddle Contest on Aug. 12.
The many fun activities and public service demonstrations that will be part of IU Day will include:
- A visit to the fair by Seal Indiana -- a statewide mobile dental program of the IU School of Dentistry that provides preventative oral health services for children who do not have access to it.
- Information from the IU School of Medicine about the latest research on cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease and cancer. People can learn to recognize early symptoms and where to go for screenings and diagnoses. Fairgoers also will be able to meet the staff of the popular radio program Sound Medicine, Barbara Lewis and Jeremy Shere, who will be doing interviews for upcoming programs. Two I-pods will be given to winners of a health quiz contest.
- Information gathered from a research program at IU Southeast about the West Nile virus and its presence in Indiana.
- Several demonstrations by the IU Physics Department that show how figure skaters spin themselves, why bicycles don't fall over and how magnets can levitate. Volunteer fairgoers also will lie on a bed of nails while cinder blocks are smashed on their chests, freeze bananas into hammers using liquid nitrogen and implode a steel drum using the power of atmospheric pressure.
- A "musical petting zoo" featuring instruments provided by the IUPUI Music Academy.
- An opportunity, presented by the IUPUI School of Science, for fairgoers to conduct a forensic science investigation and compare their results to those of the professionals.
- An "Informatics 3-D Theater," presented the IU School of Informatics, will show several stereoscopic videos, including "Painting with Electrons," "The Freaky Tiki" and "The Respiratory System."
- Advice from IU technology experts on how families can feel safe from online predators, viruses, identity scams and other threats that exist on the Internet. They also will provide useful information on how to be safe when socializing on Web sites such as Myspace.com and through instant messaging programs.
- Having your picture taken with a robotic car that operates without a driver. Pervasive Technology Labs and the Indy Robot Racing Team will display their car, which competed in a 175-mile race through the desert, and explain how robots are used in military, commercial and consumer industries.
- Indiana researchers will show how they analyze data using advanced visualization technology. Fairgoers will be able to put on a pair of stereo glasses and become immersed in a digital environment using a display developed at IU. They also can see their own face in 3-D with a camera researchers use to study facial features of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
- A bird's-eye view allows Hoosiers to see not only where they live and work, but also various Indiana landmarks. Aerial images captured for the 2005 Indiana Orthophotography project provide Indiana agencies with a complete set of detailed aerial photos for purposes like emergency response, urban planning, forestry management and economic development.
Complete information about IU Day and other IU activities at the Indiana State Fair is available online at https://www.indiana.edu/~fair/ or in the official fair program.
