ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

The Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation brings nationally recognized artists to our community through partnerships with local arts and social service organizations.

2024 RESIDENCY ARTISTS

Urban Bush Women

May 8 - May 11

We are delighted to announce Urban Bush Women will be joining us for a residency in May. Urban Bush Women dance/facilitators will take residence in Sarasota to explore community with female artists while working with community partner organizations. The residency will culminate with a performance/workshop mashup featuring Urban Bush Women, Local Artists, and our audiences in a free public event.

  • Registration Requested: Register Here — Join 2024 artists in residence from Urban Bush Women (Jaimé Yawa Dzandu, Kentoria Earle, Love Muwwakkill, Mikaila Ware) as they perform an excerpt from Haint Blu followed by a collaborative performance developed with community artists from Sarasota Contemporary Dance, Create Latino, and more.

    Haint Blu is an ensemble dance-theater work seeped in memory and magic. Known as the color that Southern families paint their front porches to ward off bad spirits, Haint Blu uses performance as a center and source of healing, taking us through movement into stillness and rest: remembering, reclaiming, releasing, and restoring. It is an embodied look into familial lines and the movements, histories and stories of our elders and ancestors. It reflects on what has been lost across generations and what can be recovered. Haint Blu takes us to the magical place where spirits share their legacies journey onward, and leave the thick residue of their knowing behind.

    After the performance, stay for a special Dance for Every Body Workshop. This movement jam/dance class embraces the ideas that each individual has a unique and powerful contribution to make, and that our bodies are a powerful source of agency. The goal is for "every body" to find their level of challenge and comfort and partake according to their abilities, and to appreciate the groups’ diversity as an attribute to their community. This is a movement class designed for the community so no prior dance experience is needed. Participants explore UBW's technique with close attention to the use of breath, weight, call and response and polyrhythm.

    Address: 655 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34236

PUBLIC SCHEDULE

  • No Registration Required. For information please contact (941) 955-2122 — Intended for ages 50+, this movement jam/dance class embraces the ideas that each individual has a unique and powerful contribution to make, and that our bodies are a powerful source of agency. The goal is for "every body" to find their level of challenge and comfort and partake according to their abilities, and to appreciate the groups’ diversity as an attribute to their community. This is a movement class designed for the community so no prior dance experience is needed. Participants explore UBW's technique with close attention to the use of breath, weight, call and response and polyrhythm.

  • This event requires pre-registration with Resilient Retreat which can be completed at resilientretreat.org/the-retreat/application or by calling (941) 343-0039 — In partnership with the Resilient Retreat, This participatory workshop will focus on self-care, rejuvenation, and (re-) constructing healthful images of ourselves and our communities. As we move, share stories, and discuss holism practices from food choices to daily stress relief, Urban Bush Women BOLD Facilitators offer simple tools for reinhabiting our bodies and reinforcing holism from the inside out. We will also bring out and affirm the wisdom that is already in the group, fostering resource exchange and building community. The goal is to bring ourselves to balance, thereby bringing our families and communities to balance as well. No dance or fitness experience is necessary...just a body and a willingness to exhale!

  • This is a closed event where Urban Bush Women will be leading worksop for Booker High School students.

  • This is a closed event where Urban Bush Women will be leading worksop for Sarasota Contemporary Dance.

  • This is a closed event where Urban Bush Women will be leading worksop for Sarasota Contemporary Dance.

COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

Urban Bush Women (UBW) galvanizes artists, activists, audiences, and communities through performances, artist development, education, and community engagement. With the groundbreaking performance ensemble at its core, and ongoing programs including the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), BOLD (Builders, Organizers & Leaders through Dance), and the Choreographic Center Initiative, UBW affects the overall ecology of the arts by promoting artistic legacies; projecting the voices of the under-heard and people of color; and bringing attention to and addressing issues of equity in the dance field and throughout the United States. UBW provides platforms and serves as a conduit for culturally and socially relevant experimental art makers.

PAST ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

Adrian Anantawan

We are thrilled to welcome back Adrian Anantawan for his second year as an Artist in Residence. Anantawan is a world-class violinist and educator, was born without a right hand, and now advocates for people with disabilities to raise awareness about issues of access and equity in arts communities. 

March 2024

  • Screening Process Required to Attend — In partnership with the Resilient Retreat, Adrian will present an interactive, therapeutic concert featuring violin classics from Mozart to Gershwin—pieces will be presented in a dialogue format, where Adrian will speak after each piece, encouraging audiences at the Resilient Retreat to explore their own relationship to music, self-expression and healing.

  • Adrian will present a musical journey of his life in this family friendly concert! This event is interactive and will feature violin classics from Mozart to Gershwin, and a piece co-composed by YOU - the audience - live!

  • Adrian will perform a FREE inspiring, family-friendly program with works by headlined Gershwin, Mozart and Kreisler as part of the Signature Artists of the Bay series. The performance will also include students with disabilities from The Haven and students from Booker High School, with a theme of overcoming adversity and adaptation through the power of music and community.

SCHEDULE

Adrian Anantawan holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale University, and Harvard Graduate School of Education. As a violinist, he studied with Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, and Anne-Sophie Mutter; his academic work in education was supervised by Howard Gardner. Memorable moments include performances at the White House, the Opening Ceremonies of the Athens and Vancouver Olympic Games, and the United Nations. He has played for the late Christopher Reeve, Pope John Paul II, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. 

Adrian has performed extensively in Canada as a soloist with the Orchestras of Toronto, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Montreal, Edmonton, and Vancouver. He has also presented feature recitals at the Aspen Music Festival and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He also represented Canada as a cultural ambassador in the 2006 Athens Olympics and was a featured performer at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Adrian helped to create the Virtual Chamber Music Initiative at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Centre. The cross-collaborative project brings researchers, musicians, doctors, and educators together to develop adaptive musical instruments capable of being played by a young person with disabilities within a chamber music setting. He is also the founder of the Music Inclusion Program, aimed at having children with disabilities learn instrumental music with their typical peers. 

From 2012-2016, he was the co-Director of Music at the Conservatory Lab Charter School, serving students from the Boston area, kindergarten through grade eight—his work was recognized by Mayor Marty Walsh as a ONEin3 Impact Award in 2015. Adrian is also a Juno Award nominee, a member of the Terry Fox Hall of Fame, and was awarded a Diamond Jubilee Medal from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to the Commonwealth. He is the current Chair of Music at Milton Academy, the Artistic Director of Shelter Music Boston, and is on faculty at Boston University Tanglewood Institute during the summer. Throughout the year, Adrian continues to perform, speak and teach around the world as an advocate for disability and the arts.

About our Artist in Residence Program

The Foundation’s artist-in-residence program started in 2021 with Kennedy Center Citizen Artist, Olmeca. The program brings distinguished artists to the Gulf Coast Region to engage in artistic exploration of a community need. In 2024, Artists in Residence will explore building community while continuing to explore barriers to arts accessibility.