By Rachel McAdams
College of Fine Arts and Communication Media Office
CONWAY — CORE Performance Company will come to Conway to work with local elementary school students and faculty, using dance performances to develop and encourage positive body image during its stay as part of the University of Central Arkansas’s Artists in Residence program Feb. 20-24.
Food and Feelings: Listening to Your Body is a narrated dance performance based on and inspired by the book, Full Mouse Empty Mouse, by Dr. Dina Zeckhausen. The shows will be performed the week of Feb. 20 for third- and fourth-grade students in the Conway Public School District. The performance was developed to encourage children’s self-awareness and positive body image.
It will also conduct four post-performance workshops with students to deepen their experience of the performance.
The company will be working with UCA’s Psychology Department to conduct pre- and post-performance surveys to analyze children’s body image and how they understand food, attitudes toward eating and disordered eating.
The company is hoping to bring together college communities, public school students and faculty and the Conway community at large to tackle eating disorders and bring awareness to a problem many adolescents and young adults face.
“Moving Toward Health,” the project these dancers support, hopes to bring awareness to disordered eating.
“The ‘Moving Toward Health’ project is an innovative program that intends to open up a dialogue about healthy body image and disordered eating using dance as a point of entry,” Dr. Gayle Seymour, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication, said.
This presentation is supported by Mid-America Arts Alliance with generous underwriting by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arkansas Arts Council and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.
This project is made possible by funding from Alternate ROOTS and the Ford Foundation through the ROOTS Tour & Residency Program. Additional funding is provided by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Heritage.
The project is also funded by UCA Center for Community and Economic Development, UCA Arts Fee through the Artists in Residence Program, UCA Office of Student Services, UCA Office of Sponsored Programs, UCA Student Dietetic Association, Faulkner County Healthy Weight Coalition and Conway Public Schools.
For more details and information about CORE Performance Company, visit www.coredance.org. For more information about the “Moving Toward Health” project, contact Seymour at 501-450-3295 or by email at gayles@uca.edu.
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