Arts Midwest

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It’s almost here — the Conference starts tomorrow! The Conference team has been in Indianapolis since yesterday morning doing a lot of onsite prep for the start of programming — from sign set-up and checking in on the Marketplace build to collating program materials and finalizing slideshows, credentials, and a million other details, we’re getting everything set for hundreds of attendees to arrive and start our four days of networking, learning, and doing business.

We’ve been reading some interesting posts on different blogs in the last few weeks, and thought we’d share them with you:

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The Wisconsin Presenters Network established the Lorraine Gross Memorial Scholarship in recognition of Dr. Lorraine Haugk Gross (1935–-1998), a long-time faculty member at the University of Wisconsin –Whitewater and a frequent attendee of the Midwest Arts Conference. The scholarship enables one student to attend the Midwest Arts Conference each year. We look forward to seeing Hannah next month in Indy!

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The Conference is excited to announce that Nnenna Freelon — singer, composer, educator, arts advocate, and six-time Grammy Award—winner — will be presenting the keynote address at our Plenary Session on Tuesday, September 14. We’re looking forward to hearing her thoughts and experiences in her address, which will be titled “The Grace of Great Things: The Arts Community in the Wireless Age.”

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For those of you who subscribe to the ArtsJournal Daily Arts News RSS feed, you may have noticed an interesting exchange over the last few days regarding choreographers who blog about their creation process.

On Monday, Wendy Perron, editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine, wrote a blog post that was strongly against choreographers blogging about how they work.

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This is the first in a series of guest posts by our friend and colleague, Robert Baird of BAM! Baird Artists Management.

My First Conference

How well I remember the first arts conference I ever attended. I had spent countless hours preparing my booth for the onslaught of presenters who would be sure to visit me. I had food and drink (and didn’t know you weren’t supposed to feed them!), and even a bunch of press kits.

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In recent years, much discussion in our field has centered around performing in non-traditional venues. This recent article from the Minneapolis StarTribune explores some very non-traditional performances and venues in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area: private homes, garages, back yards, and more.

Home is where the art is, by John Bream (July 14, 2010)

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Arts Midwest was saddened to hear this morning of the passing of our friend and colleague Richard Harriman, artistic director and founder of the world-class Harriman-Jewell Series (formerly the Harriman Arts Program) at William Jewell College in Kansas City.

Our condolences to Richard’s family and friends, and our colleagues at the Harriman-Jewell Series.

Read the Kansas City Star article from 7/15/10.

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Our thanks to Jeannette Gardner of Gardner Arts Network in New York for today’s guest post!

It has been my pleasure to serve as a co-chair of the Midwest Arts Conference New Colleague Connection program for the last four years.

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While we’re deep into the busiest part of the Conference-planning year — two big deadlines just passed last week and we have another big one coming up on Thursday — we want to take a moment to think ahead to our 2011 event and get you in the loop well in advance!