Creative B

2023 Summer B Catalyst Grants

With support from the UF Office of the Provost, the College of the Arts is proud to sponsor the following diverse, creative, innovative, and imaginative activities related to the theme of Recovery through the Arts during the Summer B term: July 3 through August 11, 2023.

Upcoming Projects

Disaster and the Body 
A multi-year research project in the School of Theatre + Dance that explores the role of performing artists in disaster recovery and response. Two internationally recognized artists/groups will conduct joint residencies at UF during Summer B to engage with each other; with UF students, faculty, and staff; and with the greater Gainesville community. The activities will result in several new artistic works. 

Points of Contact: Rachel Carrico, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance; Colleen Rua, Assistant Professor, School of Theatre + Dance 

Arts for Health Awareness: Recovery in Community 
Communities often hold the solutions to their most pressing challenges and concerns, but how often are we listening, and how deeply? This project will center the voices and experiences of historically marginalized communities, artists and creatives, and students in a way that speaks to the universality of the human experience. Through engaging with the arts and other resources, participants will get to explore ways to address some of the most elevated concerns exacerbated in the age of COVID-19: namely social isolation, collective trauma, and mental health.  This project will deliver a moving theatrical production by Art Prevails Project; workshops in storytelling, poetry, and spoken word; and engaging panels and talkback conversations which will be open to campus and the community at large. 

Points of Contact: Alana Jackson, Lecturer, Center for Arts in Medicine; Osubi Craig, Director, Center for Arts, Migration & Entrepreneurship  

Memorial for a disease - COVID: Dialogues, Drama & Documentaries 
Memorial for a disease by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences will focus on the guiding question: How can academics react to a collective trauma which brought about a global tragedy of unparalleled proportion? One way is to engage in a series of reflections and contemplation after the long period of isolation. Cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all created memorials to honor those who have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 virus. Here in Gainesville, we shall remember those who are gone and recall what is left to be done.  

Point of Contact: Kole Odutola, Senior Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literatures, & Cultures, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences  

The Walking Station 
The Walking Station promotes the active exploration of campus, while fostering connection with the environment and each other. This project builds upon ongoing research through the School of Architecture investigating how walking can be used as a tool to foster intentional observation and engagement with the built environment and communities. The Walking Station will dispense short (10-15 minute) and long (15-30 minute) walking experiences, along with short literature on the topics of walking, the mind-body connection, and recovery, to foster individual and collective activities throughout Summer B. Each walking experience includes detailed instructions and a complementary creative exercise, including collage, photography, drawing, and more. 

Point of Contact: Sarah Gamble, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Design, Construction, and Planning 

Florida Studies: The Afro-Atlantic Deep South 
Using Florida Studies, Museum Studies, Material Culture, and other lenses this Creative B course will focus on “Arts and Recovery” to retrieve and uncover important art, geographical, and cultural narratives for the creation of unique learning experiences and emergent interdisciplinary creativity. Florida with its rich history of indigenous, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influences is a perfect map to explore the cultural retentions and material culture of Black and African peoples from the 16th and 17th centuries until the present, exploring everything from the delicacies of soul food to the impact of Black labor in the timber industry to innovations in art, science, music, dance, and more. 

Point of Contact: Porchia Moore, Assistant Professor, Museum Studes, School of Art + Art History 

NOMFUSI 
UF Performing Arts to bring South Africa musical artist NOMFUSI to Gainesville for a cultural exchange through music, dialogue and conversation on health, women’s rights, and global healthcare support. With a voice rich in emotional vulnerability and nimble power, Nomfusi writes and sings from her experience, as a woman and as a child of a South African township. Her music flows from her homeland, shimmering with maskandi guitar flourishes and soaring melodies, while hinting at everything from house to '70s jazz to funk. 

Points of Contact: Elizabeth Auer, Assistant Director, UFPA; Brian Jose, Director, UFPA 

Sound-Sites in the Age of Utopian Recoverism: Art, Technology and Exhibition Practices 
University Galleries will invite Amor Múñoz and Thessia Machado, two of the artists that won the first CIFO-ArsElectronica Awards in 2022, to exhibit original artwork at UF and initiate a series of conversations about how their exploration on the connections between art and technology can lead to rethinking problems related to our ways of inhabiting the environment. These conversations are going to take place in different formats including but not limited to talks, panel discussion, master classes, studio visits and small gatherings.  

Point of Contact: Jesús Fuenmayor, Director and Curator, University Galleries 

NYLA Choreographic Residency and Summer Dance Intensive 
Choreographer and New York Live Arts residency artist Lacina Coulibaly will come to Gainesville to work with students in the School of Theatre and Dance to teach classes, create choreography, and share his work with the University. Coulibaly's training encompasses West African and European contemporary dance practices, and his work has been seen internationally.  

Points of Contact: Peter Carpenter, Director, School of Theatre + Dance; Trent Williams, Associate Professor of Dance, School of Theatre + Dance 

Creative Gator at the Harn Museum of Art 
Open to all UF Students, the Creative Gator at the Harn Museum of Art will create an inclusive and welcoming space with artmaking, mindfulness activities, demonstrations, tours, and performance. Students will get to know their local art museum through an interactive daytime program featuring exhibitions, local artists and performers, and a variety of activities.  

Points of Contact: Allysa Peyton, Student Engagement Manager, Harn Museum of Art; Eric Segal, Director of Education and Curator of Academic Programs, Harn Museum of Art 

Research & Creativity Course 
A staple of interdisciplinary research and creativity models, this introductory course explores the questions inherent to the practice of research within, and across disciplines. The course provides a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and interactive overview of diverse research methodologies. 

Points of Contact: Morgan Yacoe, Research Coordinator, Center for Arts in Medicine; Anne Donnelly, Director, Center for Undergraduate Research

Creative B 
Established in 2010 with support from the UF Office of the Provost, Creative B is a summer program for UF students that brings together creative resources and energies across the campus to provide unique opportunities for incoming freshman and existing students during the Summer B term. Historically, Creative B activities have included a variety of live cultural performances like SwampDance and community band, interdisciplinary activities like movie nights and student art workshops, and unique experiential courses. With the common goal of creative synergy, these programs engage UF students and provide cultural offerings open to the public.  

For 2023-2024, the College of the Arts has consolidated and reimagined the Creative B and Creative Campus programs. The result is a thematic program to engage students in Summer B through diverse, creative, innovative, and imaginative activities, leading up to production of a 2024 biennial summit around the two-year theme of Arts & Recovery to center UF as a national hub of innovation and emergent interdisciplinary creativity. In Summer B 2023, the UF School of Theatre + Dance will be hosting Puerto Rico-based theatre company Y no había luz, along with guest dance choreographers from New York Live Arts as residency artists to engage with students on the concept of Disaster and the Body.   

Creative Campus 
The UF Creative Campus initiative was established in 2010 under the leadership of Provost Joseph Glover in partnership with Dean Lucinda Lavelli in the College of the Arts, showcasing the University of Florida as a leader among educational institutions in forging a “Creative Campus”. The UF Creative Campus Initiative established educational settings that foster creativity in all disciplines, promoted new interdisciplinary interactions, and encouraged new ways of solving problems and formulating ideas. These in turn, fostered UF as an educational institution in which creativity, innovation, collaboration and empathy permeate academic life and impact education. Creative Campus Initiative projects included the Creative Campus Committee that granted Creative Catalyst and Scholar-on-Residence awards for interdisciplinary and inventive activities across campus, the Creative B summer program for students, and other activities that engaged the University of Florida campus and the larger community in unique and transformative ways. 

Contact 
The COTA Summer B program is directed by Stephanie Silberman, Creative Campus and College of the Arts Events Manager, in consultation with a core advisory group of faculty, staff, and students. Please direct questions to creativeb@arts.ufl.edu.