CONWAY — There will be dancing on the lawn Friday at the University of Central Arkansas as the Conway ArtsFest continues in the community through Sunday.
Members of the CORE Performance Co., a professional dance organization based in Houston and Atlanta, will be artists in residence at UCA through Friday. CORE will create a site-specific choreography, titled A Home Is a Home Is a Home, in and around the recently installed outdoor sculpture by North Carolina-based artist Patrick Dougherty on the lawn in front of McCastlain Hall.
Consumers from Independent Living Services, facilitated by students from UCA’s occupational therapy department, will join the dance company during a performance at 5:30 p.m. Friday. ILS is a nonprofit agency in Conway whose purpose is to assist in making a better life possible for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities in central Arkansas.
CORE dancers will perform alone at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
There will be an open rehearsal at 1:40 p.m. today, along with a question-and-answer session with the dancers.
All events are free and open to the public.
CORE dancers presented a movement workshop on-site with the Faulkner County Boys and Girls Club on Wednesday. They also presented a workshop for students at Blackbird Academy of Arts on Wednesday and will present a workshop for Hendrix College students at 4:30 p.m. today. The dancers will present a performance, Heart of the Matter, on Friday morning at Ida Burns Elementary School.
“The CORE Performing Co. has been coming to UCA and participating in ArtsFest since 2009,” said Gayle Seymour, associate dean of the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication. “The first project was in collaboration with a Latin American art exhibit at Baum Gallery.
“They have been back to perform and do residencies each year, including a variety of collaborations with public art installations such as the one this year,” Seymour said. “CORE is very much about community involvement. Its members are interested in the arts and how that leads to social change. They are all about finding an entry point into the arts for people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to participate. That is just a perfect fit for ArtsFest and what we try to do here at the university.”
The CORE Performance Co.’s participation in this week’s activities is a College of Fine Arts and Communication collaboration with UCA’s department of occupational therapy, Independent Living Services, Arkansas Enterprises for the Developmentally Disabled and the Faulkner County Boys and Girls Club. The event coincides with the national observance of October as Disability History and Awareness Month.
Seymour said the Arkansas Saxophone Quartet will accompany the CORE dancers for the first time this year.
“The members of CORE are very excited about this. Evidently, the dancers don’t often get to perform with live musicians. Jackie Lamar (professor of music at UCA) and her group are excited as well,” Seymour said.
“I think it’s exciting, too. This is an added layer of the arts for this collaborative project, which is funded in part by a grant from the Mid-America Arts Alliance,” Seymour said.
“We are really excited about this,” said Lamar, who plays the baritone saxophone.
“We are doing some pieces that have art references in them, references to Impressionism, Realism and others. We have been collaborating over the phone with the director of CORE, but we won’t actually meet with them
until Friday. They are an improv dance group, and I am sure it will all come together.
“We are really excited about collaborating and doing a fun project. I think it’s neat to involve the ILS folks in at least one of the performances.”
This is the second year the university’s occupational therapy department has worked with Independent Living Services consumers in a performance with the CORE dancers.
“Our department contributed a small part to the Mid-America Arts Alliance grant,” said Jennifer Moore, interim chairman and associate professor of occupational therapy at UCA.
“We are excited to help provide an opportunity for the consumers from Independent Living Services to participate with this dance troupe that is coming to our campus. Our students will help facilitate their participation in this festival,” said Moore, who is the co-founder and director of the Acting Creates Therapeutic Success program, which provides opportunities for those in the community with disabilities to participate in the performing arts.
“This is a great opportunity for our students as well. [The occupational therapy students] get to see the impact and importance of participation in the performing arts. While working alongside individuals with disabilities in this venue, the students learn that all people can benefit, enjoy and should have access to community art events,” Moore said.
“One performer said she feels so ‘special’ when she is performing,” said Jackie Fliss, executive director of ILS, “and she loves making new friends with UCA students.
“Another performer said that it is ‘so much fun,’ and she didn’t know she was capable of it. And another one of our lady performers said that when she was a child, she was never able to be on stage, and now she feels like a ‘star.’”
Seymour said the CORE Performance Co. is funded in part by an award from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arkansas Arts Council, and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Additional funding for the project is made possible by Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, the Conway Alliance for the Arts, the UCA Occupational Therapy Department, UCA Student Affairs and the UCA arts fee.
For more information on Conway ArtsFest activities, visit www.artsinconway.org.