MAAA | Programs | ArtsEngage

Connect With Your Community Through ArtsEngage!

Mid-America Arts Alliance is proud to offer ExhibitsUSA venues ArtsEngage, a collaborative effort between Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Visual Arts and Humanities and Performing Arts divisions. ArtsEngage provides exhibiting venues an opportunity to connect with professional performing artists that have created programming specific to a variety of ExhibitsUSA’s traveling exhibitions. On average, ExhibitsUSA venues annually provide three or more public programs when they display an exhibition. Public programs in the form of dance, spoken word, or musical composition, among others, help provide deeper understanding and connections to each visual art exhibition. ArtsEngage is an addition to the extensive collection of programming materials already provided with each ExhibitsUSA exhibition, and it will simplify the process of identifying exhibition-specific programming.

How Do I Participate in ArtsEngage?

ArtsEngage connects performing artists and their programs directly to an exhibitor. Once you have identified a performing artist from the list below, please contact Exhibitor Relations to receive additional information on an artists’ suggested performance and to obtain contact information. Each exhibitor will contact the selected performing artist directly to identify logistics such as scheduling and performance fees.

ArtsEngage is open to all ExhibitsUSA hosting venues nationwide. However, venues in the Mid-America region (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas) have the opportunity to apply for a grant covering up to fifty percent of a performing artist’s fees. The ArtsEngage grant is first-come, first-served and is applicable for exhibitions and performances held July 1, 2007–June 30, 2008.

Please contact exhibitor relations for additional information on this limited-time offer.

ArtsEngage Performing Artists

Ride into History
Ride into History is a historic performance touring troupe comprised of two PhD-holding scholar-performers who perform energetic direct-address, first-person narratives, while interacting with the audience.

Exhibition connections: COWGIRLS: Contemporary Portraits of the American West; Fly Now! Aviation Posters from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum; Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

CORE Performance Company
CORE Performance Company is an internationally acclaimed professional contemporary dance group with experience creating dance coupled with visual art. Their performances have utilized movement, music, projected images, the spoken word, video, instruction, and talk-back sessions.

Exhibition connections: Cardinal Points/puntos Cardinales: A Survey of Contemporary Latino and Latin American Art from the Sprint Nextel Art Collection; Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection; Hungry Planet: What the World Eats; COWGIRLS: Contemporary Portraits of the American West

Rosario Andino
Andino provides solo classical piano performances carefully crafted around an exhibition’s theme that can be accompanied by a structured pre-performance talk relating musical composition to exhibition content.

Exhibition connections: Snoopy as WWI Flying Ace

Call of the West
Call of the West specializes in music of the American West and offers performances that can be tailored to a concert, show with other acts, strolling background music, or in an educational setting such as a library, museum, or school presentation. Their music includes original composition, as well as tributes to past and present artists.

Exhibition connections: COWGIRLS: Contemporary Portraits of the American West

Priscilla Howe, Storyteller
Howe presents age-appropriate performances that can include stories, songs, and puppets, with plenty of audience participation. Educational activities can include school performances for pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, study guides for teachers, and in-service workshops for teachers on storytelling and puppetry.

Exhibition connections: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Scott Carrell, Pianist
Carrell’s performances consist of a variety of solo piano compositions from classical, ragtime, and jazz and can include a dialogue about the works, the composers, the instrument, and anecdotes about pianists and piano playing. Educational activities can include lecture-presentations on musical history as well as in-school performances.

Exhibition connections:Snoopy as WWI Flying Ace

Theatre of the Spoken Word
With performances that can be crafted to adults, teens, school-aged children, or families, Theatre of the Spoken Word features a Circle of Excellence award-winning artist, Milbre Burch, who presents gallery-friendly storytelling “chamber concerts,” readings and recitations, as well as fully realized one-woman performances with props and sets designed for the main-stage.

Exhibition connections: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Meisenbach & Golden
Offering flute and harp classical compositions complimentary to a visual art exhibition, Meisenbach & Golden engage their audiences with pre-performance talks and question and answer sessions, as well as limited hands-on audience participation.

Exhibition connections: Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection

Colleen Mallette
Internationally acclaimed soprano Colleen Mallette performs vocal recitals as well as performance talks that are thoughtfully created around a visual art exhibition. Mallette also offers a children’s interactive “informance” demonstration, “How to be a Singer.”

Exhibition connections: Painting the Beautiful: American Impressionist Paintings from the Michener Art Museum Collection; Cardinal Points/puntos Cardinales: A Survey of Contemporary Latino and Latin American Art from the Sprint Nextel Art Collection

Click here to download the ArtsEngage Guidelines and Application (PDF)