Arts Midwest News and Events

2010 Midwest Arts Conference Preview

digicom — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:57:07 -0500

Join us in Indianapolis, Indiana this September for the 2010 Midwest Arts Conference. Expand your networks, discover new artists, and attend professional development sessions at one of the nation’s largest performing arts booking conferences. Come see why people are talking about the Midwest Arts Conference and join the conversation!

Advanced Training Program Interviews

digicom — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:58:25 -0500

The National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Advanced Training was a comprehensive eight-day program for Twin Cities arts organizations that prepared key staff to collaborate on a long-term marketing plan. Arts Learning Xchange documentarian Margaret Hasse interviewed our Advanced Training Program faculty about the current state of arts marketing.

Technology and Engaging Audiences

digicom — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:18:26 -0500

Watch a playlist of video excerpts from Technology and Engaging Audiences, an Arts Learning Xchange metro-wide forum that took place on November 17, 2009 at the Minnesota History Center. Presenters included Chad Bauman, (Arena Stage), Robin Dowden (Walker Art Center), and Ryan French (Walker Art Center).

More information & additional resources….

2010-2011 Performing Arts Fund grants announced

KatherineHaugen — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:57:38 -0500

Arts Midwest’s Performing Arts Fund is pleased to announce our grantees for the 2010-2011 funding cycle, during which we will support more than 175 engagements occurring between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011.

All funded events will take place in our nine-state region, which consists of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, and feature performing artists from the Midwest, the U.S., and beyond. Each engagement includes a performance with one or more in-depth educational activities. Some engagements are considered Star Projects and connect with communities on a heightened level, whether by engaging an Midwest artist, deepening participation through a community-based residency, or providing cultural access for populations such as people with disabilities, tribal communities, immigrant communities, at-risk youth, or veterans.

View the funded events listing to learn more about these supported engagements and to see what is happening near you.

About the Performing Arts Fund: The Performing Arts Fund supports the inter-state touring of professional performing artists specializing in the fine arts of dance, theater, music, youth and family entertainment, and other meaningful performing arts forms appropriate for communities throughout Arts Midwest’s nine-state region. These engagements include public performances and in-depth educational activities reaching audiences that lack access to the performing arts.

Performing Arts Fund grants are applied for by and made directly to presenting organizations (organizations who book artists to perform in their venues) in our nine-state region. Learn more about the program.

July Spotlight: Jamestown Fine Arts Association + Step Afrika!

KatherineHaugen — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:16:29 -0500

Jamestown Fine Arts Association presented Step Afrika! in April 2010.

This Performing Arts Fund—supported engagement included a full-length public performance by Step Afrika!, a professional dance company dedicated to the tradition of stepping, a unique dance tradition in which the body is used as an instrument to create intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of footsteps, claps & spoken word. Step Afrika! also presented a lecture/demonstration for K-12 students and a percussion workshop for local band students.

Founded in 1994, Step Afrika! began as a cross-cultural exchange with the Soweto Dance Theatre. While teaching in Africa, Step Afrika!’s founder came across the South African gumboot dance, an art form created by South African mine-workers which resembled the stepping he had learned at Howard University. He and members of the Soweto Dance Theatre created Step Afrika! to link the people who practice stepping in America with those who perform the gumboot dance in Africa. Their performances and workshop delve into the history of stepping and its ties to similar percussive traditions.

“One of the core beliefs of the Jamestown Fine Arts Association is that students and adults have exposure to and opportunity to be engaged with performing arts -– especially those which reflect a culture different than local. With only a few African-American residents in the Jamestown area, this was a great way to showcase an art form created by South African mine workers. Attending this performance provided a way for students and teachers to begin conversations on a range of related topics.” – Taylor Barnes, Jamestown Art Center director

At the percussion workshop at Jamestown High School, ensemble members Andrew Vinson and Christopher Brient demonstrated rhythms used in stepping and talked about the difficulty of putting stepping into musical notation/scoring. They talked about the different drums they use and reinforced the concept of the body as a percussive instrument. An important element of this workshop -– as well as of their performance -– was the reinforcement that to succeed one must have discipline, dedication, and persistence – whatever one’s pursuit.

The ensemble/art form reached a broad range of students, and many of the teachers had taken the time to research the ensemble prior to their arrival, including watching Step Afrika!’s YouTube videos. After the percussion workshop, there was an instant “fan club” of young girls who brought their entire circle of friends to the evening performance, complete with photo moments and the desire to be the dancers’ Facebook friends.

June 2010 Spotlight: Quad City Arts + Quartet San Francisco

KatherineHaugen — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:36:20 -0500

Quad City Arts presented Quartet San Francisco in April 2010.

This Performing Arts Fund—supported engagement included a full-length public performance by Quartet San Francisco and 32 educational activities in 30 sites across the Quad Cities area during the quartet’s 11 days in the community, reaching nearly 9,000 people over the course of the residency.

Quartet San Francisco’s public performance in Davenport, Iowa, featured works from their broad repertoire and drawing from all four of the ensemble’s albums, including their most recent recording that features arrangements of Dave Brubeck jazz pieces. They bantered back and forth with the audience, especially as a strong thunderstorm raged overhead. “Despite the weather, the mood was jovial, the music excellent, and the audience sprang to their feet as the Quartet finished, who left the stage to return for an encore,” reports Susan Wahlmann, performing arts and arts-in-education director at Quad City Arts.

During the residency, Quartet San Francisco presented lecture/demonstrations and outreach performances at locations ranging from elementary schools and community colleges to senior homes, service clubs, and a local life insurance company. Every session included audience participation and time for questions and answers. The quartet demonstrated the voices of each instrument, how chamber ensembles stay together without a conductor, how the melody can pass from instrument to instrument, and their specific interest in playing music by living composers (and in their own original compositions). The music teachers at each school value Quad City Arts’ Visiting Artist Series and work to prepare their students in advance using the study guide materials the organization provides, and the quartet commented after the residency was finished that the student audiences in the Quad Cities were some of the best for which they have performed across the country.

“Thank you so much for sending Quartet San Francisco to our school. Providing these opportunities to our students is very important. The students and the teachers really enjoyed the performance and thought it was an excellent learning experience for the students. Thank you for keeping the arts alive in the hearts of children in our area!” – Teacher, Colona (Illinois) Grade School

Quartet San Francisco reached a variety of underserved audiences. Outreach activities were held at a residential center with assisted living and skilled care units for seniors in Rock Island, Illinois; rural schools and schools with more than 40% of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch in Colona, Orion, Rock Island, and Edgerton, Illinois, and Davenport and Walcott, Iowa; and in Clinton and Muscatine, Iowa, whose populations are primarily working class.

“The Performing Arts Fund support is crucial to our organization. With reduced funding from corporate foundations and the state arts councils, programs like this one that support educational programming help us leverage other community foundation grants.” – Quad City Arts staff

This engagement was a Star Project that deepened participation with a community-based residency.

May 2010 Spotlight: The Ohio State University + Reid Farrington

KatherineHaugen — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:37:57 -0500

The Ohio State University Research Foundation / Wexner Center for the Arts presented Reid Farrington in March 2010.

This Performing Arts Fund—supported engagement included performances of Reid Farrington’s Gin & “It”, an experimental coupling of live theater and video installation in a provocative narrative inspired by the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case in which two young friends think they’ve committed the perfect murder. Farrington pushed the original narrative further as he explored more of the curious dynamic of the relationship between the two friends. As a part of this debut work, the stage set-up utilized technical arrangements that mimicked the depth and feel of a film set, with actors performing live and interacting with projected images.

The engagement also included post-performance Q&A sessions with the artist; an open technical rehearsal and follow-up Q&A session with The Ohio State University (OSU) graduate students in theater; and activities specific for OSU’s Pages program, an innovative literary and writing program for high-school students that supports the development of students’ skills through the exploration of contemporary art, film, and performing arts.

Through the Pages program, 175 local area high-school students attended a performance of Gin & “It”. After the performance, students engaged in discussion with Farrington and guest writer Joe Decker about how the story is developed as it reveals more of the curious dynamic of the relationship between the two friends. Students learned about and interacted with some of the artist’s creative concepts of imagery, identity, metaphor, technology, and space, and asked many insightful questions about his work.

Wexner Center also partnered with Transit Arts, a neighborhood non-profit organization aimed at engaging underserved teenagers in the arts. Wexner Center educator Jean Pitman worked with teens in the Transit Arts program prior to the engagement by visiting with them and presenting them with a DVD of the Hitchcock film on which Farrington’s performance would be based. She also provided participants with educational materials and background information about Reid Farrington. On the night of the show, Pitman welcomed a group of twelve participants to the Wexner Center. A discussion followed the performance and students were enthusiastic about the connections they were able to make between the film and the performance.

“The Wexner Center for the Arts remains deeply grateful for the support received from the Performing Arts Fund. We pride ourselves on providing audiences with meaningful and adventurous cultural programming that simply isn’t available in any other local markets. Beyond funding, Arts Midwest also acts as a valuable resource for advocacy, providing arts and cultural institutions with resources for reminding our political representatives of the importance of the arts in the lives of local residents. We are deeply appreciative of all of the work that you do for our organization and for the arts in general in this region of the country.” – OSU staff

Read a feature story from the Columbus (OH) Dispatch about Reid Farrington and Gin & “It”
View photographs of Pages students and Reid Farrington

This engagement was a Star Project that provided cultural access for at-risk youth by partnering with Transit Arts.

Register now for the 2010 Midwest Arts Conference

KatherineHaugen — Mon, 03 May 2010 09:51:20 -0500

Registration for the 2010 Midwest Arts Conference is now open!

Dates
Mon., Sept. 13 – Thur., Sept. 16, 2010

Location
Indianapolis, Indiana

This year’s Conference will, as always, offer the same strong core programming that you’ve come to expect – a lively Marketplace exhibit hall, ample opportunities for in-person networking, an ever-growing line-up of live performances, and a wealth of timely knowledge – all at affordable rates.

Register online today to join the face-to-face conversations this September in Indianapolis, where you’ll spend four dynamic days working with and learning from your fellow colleagues who are dedicated to promoting and presenting the live touring performing arts.

About the Conference
The Midwest Arts Conference is one of the largest convenings in the nation for performing artists, artist managers/agents, theater and facility managers, and arts administrators from throughout the United States and beyond, and provides a platform for these performing arts professionals to come together for an educational and motivational four days focused on promoting and presenting live touring performing arts.

The Conference provides the platform for you to:

The Conference is committed to providing a productive and energized environment where attendees come together to connect and collaborate, which is more important than ever in the current business climate. We provide the platform for attendees to:

Expand your networks of performing arts colleagues, resources, and opportunities
Learn new skills and gain valuable insights into issues relevant to your work in the performing arts
Present your or your artists’ work to a large and diverse audience of potential buyers
Discover artists in the Marketplace exhibit hall and at live performances
Create dynamic performing arts experiences for artists and audiences
Invest in strengthening your organizational capacity and flexibility

For more information on the Conference and registration, visit the Conference home.

April 2010 Spotlight: Brookings Chamber Music Society + Flanders Recorder Quartet

KatherineHaugen — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:41:58 -0500

Brookings Chamber Music Society in Brookings, South Dakota, presented Flanders Recorder Quartet in February 2010.

This Performing Arts Fund–supported engagement featured a innovative performance entitled Banchetto Musical (1400-2005) -– Symphonie de 7 Degustations and included a presentation to university music-appreciation students and a pre-performance talk. Hailing from Belgium, the Flanders Recorder Quartet is composed of four well-known recorder players: Bart Spanhove, Tom Beets, Joris Van Goethem, and Paul Van Loey. The group spotlights the recorder, an instrument that is often underrated, and lets it shine in all its glory.

The programmatic theme of the performance was based on a restaurant menu and included French aperitif, Italian antipasti, sorbet, and dessert. It included music from 17th-century France, Germany, and Italy, along with some contemporary and original works for recorder. One of the compositions was created specifically for the Flanders Recorder Quartet and was played entirely with water-filled bottles. Most of the audience in attendance had never or rarely had the opportunity to hear a live performance with recorders. The audience reaction was overwhelmingly enthusiastic for the performance by such high-caliber artists.

Members of the Flanders Recorder Quartet gave a presentation to a music-appreciation class at South Dakota State University that featured a discussion about the construction and history of the recorder and a number of historical styles, as well as teaching techniques for playing the instrument. Many of the students were non-music students and had never actually seen a recorder. Prior to the performance, the members of the quartet gave a talk that included information about the group, their performing backgrounds, and the repertoire that they would be performing.

“I was in attendance at the presentation for the music-appreciation students to observe their reactions. The majority of students found it quite interesting, asked questions, and applauded after [the quartet] performed examples of their work. The students were generally astounded when the eight-foot-tall recorder was shown and played, as was I. Several students attended the evening performance as a result of the presentation.” – John Walker, Brookings Chamber Music Society

Arts Midwest one of the Best Nonprofits to Work For in 2010

digicom — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:07:54 -0500

Arts Midwest is proud to be among the 50 Best Nonprofits to Work For in 2010. The Nonprofit Times worked with the Best Companies Group to conduct employee surveys and other independent evaluations at nonprofits across the nation.

Arts Midwest ranked 7th overall and 4th among small employers. You can read about Arts Midwest at the beginning of the article on page 14 of the attached report.

Nonprofit Times Best Nonprofits to Work For in 2010