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Neighborhood Report
Coleman students to speak volumes with silence
The mimes will perform at a benefit to help people with mental illnesses.
By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published September 29, 2006
They'll wear wings, feather boas, top hats and striped tights. They'll do cartwheels and tap dances and flutter like butterflies. They'll be punk rockers, ballerinas, kitty cats and clowns. But they won't say a word. More than 20 Coleman Middle School students will be mimes in a Cirque du Soleil-style performance art act during Saturday's Art for Life fundraiser. "I told them to choose anything. Things that didn't match, glitzy things," said their teacher, artist Elena Cifuentes. It took 13-year-old Lola Kessler two hours to pick out her outfit with fishnet stockings and cheetah pants. Rafe Lindhart, 14, donned a fuzzy top hat and invented a character that jigs. "We kind of made it up while we were going," Rafe said. Cifuentes, whose artwork will be auctioned at the event, was inspired by mimes in Barcelona to organize the act. The seventh- and eighth-graders put on a show at the 2006 Gasparilla Festival of the Arts and were invited by Art for Life organizers to do the same at the benefit event. To go with their vibrantly colored costumes, the Coleman students also created 14 sculpture centerpieces to sell at the party. This year, more than 50 pieces will be sold in a voice auction and more than 500 pieces will be up for silent auction. Art for Life benefits Project Return, a nonprofit organization to help people with mental illnesses. A portion of the proceeds also will go to St. Joseph's Comprehensive Research Institute, a department of the hospital that researches therapies for infectious diseases, such as HIV. IF YOU GO Art for Life is Saturday at Higgins Hall, 5225 N Himes Ave. Doors open at 7 p.m.; voice auction starts at 8 p.m. Purchase tickets at www.artforlife tampa.org or call 990-8981. Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com.
[Last modified September 28, 2006, 11:55:00]
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