Imagination Celebration Fort Worth and America the Beautiful

America the Beautiful: A Celebration of Our National Parks Presents Experiential,
Multidisciplinary Programs to Bring the Grand Canyon to Life
in Fort Worth through May 2011

NEWS

For Immediate Release: 1/6/2011

Contacts: Kira Johnson, ICFW khjohn33@hotmail.com (817-870-1141)
Catherine Kelly, PHPR Inc. ckelly@phprinc.com (800-776-9720)

“America the Beautiful” Brings Grand Canyon National Park to
Fort Worth Audiences through May 2011

(Fort Worth, Texas) – Ginger Head Gearheart, founder and executive director of Imagination Celebration Fort Worth (ICFW), has announced a year-long ICFW series of city-wide multidisciplinary celebrations, performances, exhibits, and programs to bring Grand Canyon National Park to life in the city for students and the general public through May of 2011. This new model program is a collaborative effort between ICFW and Grand Canyon National Park.

Educational programs relating to the theme “America the Beautiful: A Celebration of Our National Parks” have been presented in both public and private schools this fall, and ICFW will open elements to the general public throughout the spring of 2011. Numerous Fort Worth arts and cultural organizations have joined in developing this series, all of which include educational components for over 79,000 school children, as well as an anticipated public audience of 100,000 throughout the area.

In November 2010, the ICFW Annual Logo Competition and City-Wide Exhibition was held at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Conservatory. ICFW honored 30,000 entries, including first prize recipient Angelica Nava, a sixth grade student at Leonard 6th Grade Center who won the competition with her drawing of Grand Canyon.

In December 2010, “A Sense of Place: Artists Explore the American West” opened at the Sid Richardson Museum in collaboration with ICFW; it will run through May 2011. On display will be an historically significant Thomas Moran painting of the Grand Canyon on loan from the Grand Canyon’s permanent collection.

Also ongoing through May 2011 is the Grand Canyon Artist-in-Residence program, which combines with ICFW’s national award-winning Young Artist Apprenticeship program, established in 1989, to offer hands-on workshops to students in elementary, middle, and high schools.

In January 2011, students will participate in “The Art of Exploration: Our Lands, Forests, Ancient Peoples and Wildlife,” a workshop series at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center featuring several internationally recognized explorers. Canadian explorer and renowned botanist Diana Beresford-Kroeger will present workshops on Healing Gardens and her cutting-edge work on the special relationship between trees, plants, and all living creatures. For more information on Beresford-Kroeger, please visit http://www.stuartbernstein.com/beresford-kroeger.html. Milbry Polk, explorer, renowned lecturer, author, and founder of WINGS WorldQuest will present workshops on what it means to be a world explorer. Adventurer Helen Thayer will present “Stories of Arctic Exploration.” The first woman to trek solo to the magnetic North Pole without a dogsled or snowmobile, Thayer will speak about her experiences to inspire integrity and courage. Artists and performers from the Arctic Circle’s Inuit culture will teach the use of natural materials and rhythms in their creations; and Bill Oliver, the singer/songwriter internationally known in schools, nature centers, museums and parks as “Mr. Habitat,” will perform dynamic, interactive original songs about environmental and wildlife issues. Hands-on workshops will also be presented by the Fort Worth Botanic Garden and artist Elizabeth Willett.

Neiman Marcus will host a Grand Canyon Celebration at Ridgmar Mall on February 23 with a special evening event and live music. The preceding week, Neiman’s will exhibit artistic works by North Texas artists, inspired by Grand Canyon landscapes and ancient artifacts. Dozens of unique creations will be on display throughout the store and available for purchase by guests via a silent auction and sales. Proceeds will benefit ICFW.

In March, the “Planting of the Oaks” program will provide and deliver up to 50 oak trees to schools throughout the Fort Worth School District.

May 2011 is dedicated to “America the Beautiful: A Celebration of Our National Parks.” For 31 days, public and student audiences can experience a special series of events with an in-depth focus on Grand Canyon National Park, including unique exhibits, performances, lectures, and other activities in cultural institutions and performance halls across the city. The opening night gala, in early May at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, will celebrate the opening of the “Treasures of the Grand Canyon” art exhibit at the Center, the “Grand Canyon’s Green Heart” botanical exhibition at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, and “Grand Canyon Through the Lens of Adam Schallau” at the Fort Worth Public Library. Leadership from Grand Canyon and other national parks, environmental education specialists from Grand Canyon, and Grand Canyon artists-in-residence will be in attendance, presenting special workshops and lectures.

Highlights include these special performances:

A screening of Ken Burns’ acclaimed 2009 documentary series on the National Parks, America’s Best Idea
Performances by Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni tribal members
Premiere of Grand Canyon-inspired music compositions for cello performed by Rhonda Rider
New commissioned works for orchestra composed and conducted by Arturo Rodriguez
Premiere of a dance piece choreographed by Obediah Wright and inspired by the return of the condor and the glory of Grand Canyon
Newly-composed music by Native American students in Fort Worth in collaboration with the award-winning Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project, performed by New York-based string quartet ETHEL
Premiere of “Grand Canyon 360” – a cinematic audio/visual immersive experience in the Black Box Theater of the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, produced by Red Productions (under development)

“Treasures of the Grand Canyon: Paintings from the 19th Century through Today” will be on display at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center throughout May 2011. Docent-led tours are available to students and the public. Featuring paintings by master artists, the exhibit captures a singular artistic vision of our irreplaceable, treasured American landscape. These works from the Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection and Grand Canyon Association will eventually reside in a new museum designed exclusively for the collection and planned for construction on the South Rim of Grand Canyon.

“Grand Canyon’s Green Heart,” a special exhibition on Grand Canyon’s botanical treasures, will also run through May at Fort Worth’s Botanic Garden in collaboration with Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Association, and the Desert Botanical Gardens. This exhibition includes:

Botanical history of Grand Canyon
Photographs, plant specimens, drawings and silk screens from Grand Canyon artists
Historic botanic tools
Docent-led tours and lectures
Student education programs

“Grand Canyon through the Lens of Adam Schallau” will open at the Central Branch of the Fort Worth Public Library. Schallau, a recent artist-in-residence at Grand Canyon National Park, was the official photographer of the 25th Annual Taos Pueblo Pow Wow and received the Luminous Landscape Endowment, among many other honors.

“In Performance: The Grand Canyon Experience,” at William E. Scott Theatre, will present a series of special concerts and performances of new works in music and dance, including many of the works debuted at the opening night gala. Performers include Grand Canyon Music Festival’s nationally recognized Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project and New York-based string quartet ETHEL. “In Performance” will showcase original compositions by a number of musicians, performed for both student and public audiences, and a public lecture series.

All America the Beautiful program aspects are currently under development and subject to change.

About Imagination Celebration Fort Worth

The ICFW mission is to transform lives and learning for students, teachers, and families through the creation, production, and presentation of an annual series of innovative programs that inspire learning and creativity and in, through, and about the arts.

Imagination Celebration Fort Worth, originally a satellite site selected by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for educational festivals, was established in 1987 as a partnership between the 89,000-student Fort Worth Independent School District and our city’s cultural community. Now an independent non-profit organization, ICFW provides arts and cultural programming for students year-round in Fort Worth. Over the years, Imagination Celebration has provided nearly seven million individual arts and cultural experiences for students in every grade level at schools across the North Texas Metroplex, augmenting each program with specially designed curriculum guides, student study sheets (Imaginotes), books, films, and other related resources. Imagination Celebration Fort Worth has also presented professional development training for more than 20,000 teachers.

ICFW also designs and presents programs outside the classroom, including the Young Artist Apprenticeship Program, the Debbie Allen Dance Institute, and the Statewide Program for the Deaf.

ICFW’s work has been supported with generous grants and gifts from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the City of Fort Worth, The Texas Commission on the Arts, the Texas Education Agency, The Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County, and many private foundations, corporations, and individuals. Imagination Celebration has received two Chairman’s Extraordinary Action Grants from the National Endowment of the Arts; a Texas Medal of Arts (2005); a Coming Up Taller award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities (2008); a U.S. Department of Education designation as “Outstanding Arts Education Model,”; and is a two-time recipient of the top “Arts in Education Organization in the Nation” award from Americans for the Arts.

The America the Beautiful program concept was developed by Ms. Gearheart and Jacob Fillion, branch chief for environmental education at Grand Canyon National Park.

For more information about this year’s America the Beautiful: A Celebration of Our National Parks, or about Imagination Celebration Fort Worth, please call 817-870-1141, e-mail imagine@icfw.org, or visit www.icfw.org.

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