Project Grant - Round 1
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education
If this project achieves the intended outcomes, Fine Arts Programming expects audiences and residency participants to have a new interest and curiosity about modern dance that will lead them to explore other offerings from Fine Arts Programming and other Central Minnesota performing arts organizations, both in traditional and more innovative forms. Residency participants will also have a greater sense of what constitutes modern dance through the education components of Casebolt and Smith's outreach. Fine Arts Programming anticipates that area youth who participate in residencies will have a better appreciation for dance through hands-on interactions with the ensemble. Fine Arts Programming staff members expect that these activities will also strengthen relationships with our residency partners, which in turn will facilitate future partnerships.Fine Arts Programming will gather feedback responses from workshop facilitators to find out if the residency activities met the intended goals and/or expectations for each different demographic. These will not be surveys so much as narrative responses, giving partners a chance to provide more meaningful feedback. When we have partnered in the past, many times, facilitators ask their participants to journal about their experiences; these reflections have provided a wealth of information on the impact of arts activities. Fine Arts Programming will ask Boys and Girls Club to do the same for this residency. We will ask for this kind of feedback from College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University faculty whose classes take part in workshops with Casebolt and Smith, as well as any groups from District 742, and the Dancing with Many Voices dance ensemble. The easiest and most often used measure of success will, of course, be attendance numbers at residency activities and at the public performance. Fine Arts Programming will track ticket sales and participation numbers at residency events as well as survey the public performance audience to find out if this performance attracted new audiences to a contemporary dance performance as anticipated and if this style of dance was successful at changing attitudes and/or perceptions of modern dance.
One need identified in the application was that this project could help introduce new audiences to modern and contemporary dance. Survey results indicate that 49% of the audience attended any kind of live dance performance 0-5 times before. More importantly, 77% of the audience indicated that this performance changed their understanding or perspective on modern dance. Residency participants walked away with new ways of approaching dance and improvisation. The work in partnering and teamwork was also an important outcome in the creative process. Patrons at the public performance were asked to complete surveys to find out if this project attracted new audiences to dance performances or if this project changed perceptions of contemporary/modern dance. Evaluation forms were distributed to residency facilitators. Participation numbers were tracked for each residency event and the public performance.
Other, local or private