Shine on

The University of North Carolina Wilmington's Lumina Festival of the Arts returns for the third summer on Friday, with more than two weeks' worth of concerts, performances, family fun and more at venues all over campus.

This will be the first Lumina Festival without the woman who started it, Kristen Brogdon, UNCW's former director of the arts, whose aim was to create a mini-Spoleto in the Port City. She left for a post at the University of Minnesota a few weeks ago, but helped plan and deliver the festival as a parting gift to Wilmington.

There's plenty going on, and we'll be taking a deep dive into a number of these events in the coming days and weeks. But for now let's take an overview of some of the highlights, in chronological order.

1. Opening night poetry jam

The festival's traditional, high-energy opener, hosted by Bigg B and Sandra from Coast 97.3 FM, features a number of area poets delivering their works in a slam-style setting. This year's jam will have a multimedia aspect to it, with dance from choreographer Qaadir Hicks, music from violinist Christa Faison and a short film plucked from the archives of the N.C. Black Film Festival. 7:30 p.m. July 12 at Kenan Auditorium. $10.

2. Hooked on Arts street fair

It might be hot next weekend, but it'll be cool in more ways than one under the pines of the Kenan Lawn, next to Kenan Auditorium, for the Hooked on Arts street fair. A collaboration between the Lumina Festival and UNCW's College of Health & Human Services, the fest-within-a-fest features art vendors, food trucks, entertainment, kids' activities and more in service of raising awareness of locally based art therapies and addiction services. With special, family-friendly performances 11 a.m. Saturday (by longtime children's entertainer Mark "Mr. Mark" Herbert) and 11 a.m. Sunday ("library rapper" Melvil Dewey, aka Mr. Scooter). 10 a.m.-2 p.m. July 13-14, Kenan Lawn. Free.

3. 'Footprints'

This is like a greatest hits concert of modern dance, with Durham's American Dance Festival performing pieces by late dance legends Martha Graham (the sprawling “Dark Meadow Suite”), Merce Cunningham (the playful "How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run") and Paul Taylor (the dynamic "Esplanade"). The premiere event of the festival's first weekend. 7:30 p.m. July 13 at Kenan Auditorium. $20-$50.

4. 'Moons'

UNCW art professor Courtney Johnson's photography exhibit features pictures of not only the real moon — you know, the one that orbits Our Earth — but also moons of her own devising made of sand, flour, clay and more. Some of the photos were taken using actual moonlight. In her artist's statement, Johnson said her photos are intended, in part, to highlight "the tension between natural and artificial." It's all timed, down to the exhibit's opening date, to the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon launch. Opening reception is 5:30-7 p.m. July 16 in the Cultural Arts Building Gallery. On view through Aug. 30. Free.

5. Michael Mossman

Grammy- and Oscar-nominated jazz trumpet player Mossman, an exemplar of the "hard bop" and Latin jazz genres, joins up with the UNCW Summer Jazz Workshop Faculty Big Band for this concert. Mossman is a longtime musician, composer, bandleader and educator, and the concert should bounce between original works and pieces by jazz icons both familiar and obscure. 7:30 p.m. July 17 at Kenan Auditorium. $20.

6. 'La Bohème'

Opera Wilmington presents Giacomo Puccini's famous opera about struggling artists that inspired the contemporary musical "Rent." Featuring a mix of guest artists and local singers. 7 p.m. July 19 and 26, 3 p.m. July 21 and 28 at the Cultural Arts Building Mainstage Theater. $25-$60.

7. 'Behind the Curtain'

Alchemical Theatre of Wilmington, which staged full Shakespearean productions for the first two Lumina Fests, switches things up a bit this year. Taking place on the Kenan stage, hence the name, the evening will be part demonstration, part performance. The two-hour event will start with mini-performances by the Make Trouble training ensemble, which is staging abridged versions of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the seldom-seen "Timon of Athens" during Lumina, as well as a demo on how Shakespeare is used to train teachers who work with children with autism. And then the main event: the debut of "In Blood," UNCW theater professor Chris Marino's edgy adaptation of "Macbeth." 7:30 p.m. July 20 at Kenan Auditorium. $40-$60.

8. 'Lost Love Song'

A uncommon blend of songs, stories and history featuring the powerhouse trio of singer, songwriter and musician Rhiannon Giddens (of Carolina Chocolate Drops fame); acclaimed multi-genre violinist Regina Carter; and Wilmington-based writer John Jeremiah Sullivan, who recently penned a profile of Giddens for The New Yorker that delved into the singer's, and his own, interest in the racially charged violence that afflicted Wilmington in the infamous year of 1898. 1898 was the focus of a musical program Sullivan and Giddens did in Wilmington at the Cucalorus Festival in November, and "Lost Love Song" should follow along similar lines as the participants delve into a story with both wide-ranging import and local threads. Co-presented by Sullivan's Third Person Project — a group dedicated to art, culture, history and documentary work with a focus on the Cape Fear — it's about how a forgotten song by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a black London composer influenced by a Wilmington singer, Carrie Sadgwar of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, may hold the key to the origins of the blues. Not to be missed. 7:30 p.m. July 22 at Kenan Auditorium. $40-$50.

9. Shana Tucker

North Carolina cellist is known for blending jazz, classical, R&B, folk, pop and more into a genre she calls Chamber Soul. She often puts her own spin on popular songs (Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It") but she's got stirring, exploratory originals as well. 7:30 p.m. July 25 at Kenan Auditorium. $20.

10. 'Phoenix, Oregon'

The Cucalorus Festival presents a screening of this new film from writer/director Gary Lundgren about a struggling small-town cartoonist who joins with a collection of dreamers to open a combination bowling alley and pizzeria. Nothing goes as planned, but that's part of the fun. With James Le Gros ("Ally McBeal"), Diedrich Bader ("Office Space," "Napoleon Dynamite," TV's "Veep") and Kevin Corrigan ("True Romance"). Followed by a bowling party, in whatever form that might take. 7:30 p.m. July 27 at Kenan Auditorium. $20.

11. Campfireball

Former Wilmington actor, comic and artist Cory Howard will send Lumina Fest 3 into oblivion with Campfireball, his experimental storytelling show that's at once interactive, improvisational and absurd. There's a method to the madness, but you probably won't be able to get your head straight about it till it's all over. Sharing stage with Campireball will be the Dance-a-Lorus lab, an offshoot of Cucalorus' annual blend of film and movement. 6:30 p.m. July 28 at Kenan Auditorium. $10.

Contact John Staton at 910-343-2343 or John.Staton@StarNewsOnline.com.

Want to go?

What: Lumina Festival of the Arts, presented by UNCW's Office of the Arts

When: July 12-28

Where: UNCW campus

Info: Tickets range from $5-$60. Some events are free.

Details: 910-962-3500 or UNCW.edu/arts

SCHEDULE

• July 12: Opening night poetry jam, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $10
• July 13-14: Hooked on Arts street fair, 10 a.m – 2 p.m., Kenan Lawn. Free.
• July 13: Opera Wilmington "Behind the Scenes," 10 a.m.-noon, Cultural Arts Building Mainstage Theater. Free.
• July 13: "Footprints," dance performances by American Dance Festival, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $20-$50.
• July 13: Salsa dance party, 9 p.m. at UNCW Amphitheatre. Free.
• July 14: Spotlight on theater, with recent plays by Mouths of Babes (2 p.m.), Robin Post (4 p.m.), Khalisa Rae (6:30 p.m.) and Ed Wagenseller (8:30 p.m.). Kenan Auditorium, $10.
• July 15: UNCW faculty jazz combos, 7:30 p.m. at Beckwith Recital Hall. $6.
• July 16: Opening reception for Courtney Johnson's photography exhibit "Moons," 5:30-7 p.m. in the Cultural Arts Building Gallery. Free.
• July 16: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," 7 p.m. in the SRO Theatre. $10.
• July 17-18: "Timon of Athens," 7 p.m. in the SRO Theatre. $10.
• July 17: UNCW Summer Jazz Workshop Faculty Big Band, with Michael Mossman, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $20.
• July 18: "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (sensory friendly), 10:30 a.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $5
• July 19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," 2 p.m. in the SRO Theatre. $10.
• July 19, 26: Opera Wilmington's "La Bohème," 7 p.m. at Cultural Arts Building Mainstage Theater, 7 p.m. $25-$60.
• July 19: UNCW Summer Jazz Workshop showcase, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. Free.
• July 20: Alchemical Theatre's "Behind the Curtain," 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $40-$60.
• July 21, 28: Opera Wilmington's "La Bohème," 3 p.m. at Cultural Arts Building Mainstage Theater, 7 p.m. $25-$60.
• July 22: Lost Love Song, with Rhiannon Giddens, Regina Carter and John Jeremiah Sullivan, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $20-$50.
• July 25: Shana Tucker (sensory friendly), 10:30 a.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $5.
• July 25: Shana Tucker, 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $20.
• July 26: Ronald Sachs Competition winner Jacob Wang, 5:30 p.m. at Beckwith Recital Hall. $10.
• July 27: Opera Wilmington orchestra concert, 2 p.m. at Beckwith Recital Hall. $20.
• July 27: Cucalorus film screening of "Phoenix, Oregon," followed by bowling party. 7:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $10.
• July 28: Cucalorus presents Campfireball, featuring Dance-a-lorus lab, 6:30 p.m. at Kenan Auditorium. $10.