Thinking Outside the Box
A Conversation and Master Class with Imani Winds
Watch master musicians from Imani Winds work directly with the students of Fred Fox Graduate Wind Quintet, exploring the music of Paquito D’Rivera, presented by the Fred Fox School of Music and Arizona Arts’ Racial Justice Studio at the CCP Auditorium.
Imani Winds is nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.” An open conversation about curating a meaningful artistic career in the 21st century and on how musicians can approach programming music outside the Western European canon will follow the master class. The event is free and open to the public. Learn more.
Who We Are
Racial Justice Studio seeks to amplify the work of Arizona Arts scholars, artists, and educators for whom anti-racism is a core tenet embedded in their professional and personal lives, while also partnering with stakeholders, advocates, and activists beyond the UA campus. It was conceived and founded by Chelsea Farrar, Amelia (Amy) Kraehe, and gloria j. wilson to …
- Promote deep understanding of racism and production of anti-racist knowledge through creative practice and arts research broadly conceived;
- Provide transformative learning opportunities and community engagement that build race-consciousness in and through the arts; and
- Build connections, compassion, and co-conspiratorship among students, faculty, departments, initiatives, centers, and institutes within and beyond the Arizona Arts that share a commitment to anti-racism.
What We Do
Rehearsals in Anti-Racism
Rehearsals in Anti-Racism is a Fine Arts course that engages students in personal, political, philosophical, and aesthetic conversations about race, racism, and their intersections with other markers of identity. By using workshop-style teaching methods that engage all the senses in arts-based creative activities, conversations about race move beyond words to something more embodied and participatory. Themes addressed in the course include othering and belonging, bodies and space, surveillance and policing, wellbeing and trauma, social media and truth, and more. Students learn how systemic racism affects their own histories, perceptions, and relationships as well as how to creatively intervene in a world structured by racial inequality.
Race/Remix
Race/Remix is a speaker series and podcast featuring an interdisciplinary conversation on the topic of race and racism in the arts. The series brings together speakers from a wide range of disciplines and fields to take part in a live moderated dialogue and a recorded podcast episode available online. The moderated dialogue pairs artists, poets, writers, directors, dancers, designers, performers, and other creative practitioners with social scientists, historians, curators, journalists, activists, and others whose expertise helps illuminate racial injustice and imagine more just and sustainable futures. Topics may include, for example, cultural industries, media, healthcare, education, justice systems, immigration, housing, and more. This program is generously supported with funds from John and Sandi Flint.
Creative Abolitionist Teaching (CAT) Fellows
Creative Abolitionist Teaching (CAT) Fellows is a network that brings together artists and educators who teach in schools and universities to develop anti-racist pedagogies and curricula using the lens of contemporary arts. CAT enables Arizona Arts to impact the system of arts education locally and across the state. It recognizes systemic racism is a problem throughout the K-20 arts education pipeline. This pipeline refers to the interdependence between undergraduate and graduate arts programs and the feeder programs at the K-12 level. The University and Arizona Arts have a role to play in reshaping this pipeline through partnership with arts educators working in schools (many of whom are graduates of CFA programs). Artists and educators who teach in schools and universities can work together to tear down barriers that discourage students from continuing their arts education into post-secondary programs and build new methods and curriculum structures for inclusive excellence in and through the arts.