Arts Share, the University of Iowa program that provides life-enriching arts experiences, had its busiest year ever during the 2013-14 academic year, with more than 300 events in 36 Iowa cities and towns, from Council Bluffs on the Missouri River to Clinton on the Mississippi and from Des Moines, population 200,000-plus, to Elk Horn, population 620-plus.

The programs included performances in music, dance, and theater as well as workshops in writing, printmaking, and sculpture. They took place in K-12 schools and community colleges as well as in local theaters, libraries, hospitals, neighborhood centers, and retirement communities.

In addition, high school students from several additional communities came to the UI campus to participate in a High School Workshop and Performance Day held last November. Arts Share and the UI Theatre Arts Department hosted the workshop, which was led by UI graduate students.

“Support from the UI Office of Outreach and Engagement was a game-changer as we created new partnerships with communities,” says Leslie Finer, Arts Share administrator. "It is much easier now to work with schools and other organizations that have small or nonexistent arts budgets. We can also afford the travel that comes with having our artists perform and give workshops on the other side of the state."

Three new initiatives were notable, she says:

• A partnership with the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities led to undertakings in public art. These included artists designing holiday window displays in the New Bo/Czech Village area in Cedar Rapids, a sculpture made from aluminum cans in Muscatine, and a mural on the back wall of the Washington Public Library.

• In collaboration with the Wieting Theatre in Toledo, a year-long concert series was arranged, featuring several UI ensembles: the Iowa Brass Quintet, Dancers in Company, the PanAmerican Steel Band, and a performance of “Songs of War” by UI Voice Professor Katherine Eberle and her students. A grant from the Iowa Tourism Bureau helped fund the series.

• Arts Share also teamed with the Iowa Youth Writing Project to pilot a Creative Ambassadors program this past summer. Young writers who participated in the program on the UI campus returned to their hometowns to teach workshops on surrealism and poetic imagination, comic book writing and world games, and portrait stories.

The 2014-15 year promises more of the same, Finer adds. “Our work with Iowa community colleges continues to grow, and projects this year will feature writers from the UI’s International Writing Program. We’ll also be teaming with the Iowa Arts Council and Department of Cultural Affairs, and we’ll begin new projects Decorah, Sioux City, and Iowa City through the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities. Stay tuned.”

Arts Share continues the UI’s long tradition of sharing creative resources from the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, its Division of Performing Arts (music, dance, theater), the School of Art and Art History and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. It is also supported by the UI Graduate College. Arts Share's goal is to strengthen the arts in underserved areas, reaching out to provide access to life-enriching arts experiences throughout Iowa.

The UI’s Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities is a campus-wide effort to enhance the capacity of Iowa communities to address the economic, environmental and social-cultural issues they face and to build a more sustainable future.

The Iowa Youth Writing Project is a nonprofit outreach collective, founded in 2010 by UI Writers’ Workshop graduates, that aims to join Iowa City’s unique literary heritage with Iowa’s larger community by empowering, inspiring and educating Iowa’s youth through language arts and creative thinking.