View our web exhibit from the Lyceum 2000, entitled "Our Other Lives: Work and Creativity in the Calumet Region."
Master classes
Panel discussions
Evening performances
Guided Tour
Lyceum 2000:
Our Other Lives: Work and Creativity in the Calumet Region
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Greek cooking master class participants proudly display finished baklava. (l-r, front row: Elin Christianson, Becky Crabb, Mary Halkias, Irene Batalis; back row: Cynthia Ogorek and Peter Youngman). Photo by Erin Roth. |
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Greek cooking master class leader Mary Halkias encourages participant Peter Youngman to get his hands into the spanikopita mixture. Photo by Erin Roth. |
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What do cooking, historical reenactments, family history, ethnic music, work, and natural environment have to do with each other? These topics were all included in the Calumet Region's Lyceum. Participants explored how work, creativity and environment weave together to form a rich and diverse regional identity. While the lyceum included components of a traditional history conference, it featured master classes, panel discussions,a motor coach tour, and evening performances.
Master classes
The lyceum kicked off on Friday, September 29, 2000 with five master classes: traditional food, music, crafts, natural history, and genealogy. One could survey, cook, and taste Greek cooking from appetizers to desserts, learn the ins and outs of Bar-B-Que cooking Gary-style, or practice the Polish traditional arts of paper cutting and egg decorating.
Panel discussions
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The Lake Erie docking at the international harbor at the Port of Indiana, one of the stops along the Lyceum bus tour. Photo by Inta Carpenter.
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The Drina Orchestra performing for evening guests at the Lyceum. Photo by Kathy Roberts. |
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The Lyceum invited chefs, musicians, artists, collectors, re-enactors, actors, local scholars, community activists, and spare-time historians to reflect on personal values pursued through work and through creative "other lives." In informal roundtable conversations, they shared passions that filled their spare time with beauty, meaning, and mission. New friendships grew between participants from diverse backgrounds. The music roundtable, for instance, introduced an African American jazz musician to a Serbian/Croatian tamburitza musician, both from Gary and both musicians who grew up in a tense era of segregation.
Evening performances
Saturday evening performances celebrated the Calumet Region through music and verse. Under the direction of Yjean Chambers, of the Van Buren Baptist Church choir performed a "Saga of Black Life in Gary, Indiana." The Drina Tamburitza Orchestra, a local Serbian and Croatian ensemble formed twenty-six years ago, serenaded Lyceum guests during an evening social.
Guided tour
Local historians and educators Mary Leuca and Bruce Wood guided Sunday afternoon's motor coach tour of the Region. Participants visited the International Port of Indiana, the historic neighborhood of Marktown, the Salvatorian Fathers Monastery and Our Lady of Czestochowa Shrine, and St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church.
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