What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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people with an opportunity to be creative, to make a little bit of money, to process this world around them in whatever way they need," reflects Blake Worthey. "It just felt so important; it felt like such a necessary thing to have happen, and for them to want me to be a part of that team was just really, really cool." Worthey is an artist liaison with CACHE (Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange) and a dance- theater artist himself. Worthey thinks back on his assistance in curating the OZCast lineups as empowering because, he shares, he was helping people he didn't even know — helping them to get equipment, learn to promote their work in writing, and fostering excitement for creating work in spite of fraught times. That network-building was one of the primary goals of the series, Jesse Elliott told What's Up! after the series debut in October. Elliott is the director of creative ecosystems at CACHE and was instrumental in OZCast's development, alongside Executive Director Allyson Esposito, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and documentarian Mario Troncoso and OZCast project manager, editor and animator Lisa Marie Evans. Presenting artists with the means and opportunity to continue flourishing would also certainly benefit the community at large as well, Elliott said of the project's third goal. These objectives, he explained, "basically say, 'Hey, we as a society really need inspiration right now. In some ways, we need creativity and writers and thinkers and dreamers and visual artists and graffiti artists — we need it more than ever.' And yet, the economy to support that obviously has dried up in a lot of ways," Elliott said. "So the idea is to see how our creative folks, our artist folks, are responding to these really crazy times, and hopefully lend some insight and some comfort and some imagination and all that to the rest of us." Dancers and musicians, designers and animators, poets and chefs, tattoo and experimental and performance artists blend their visions and their voices around a loosely structured theme for each episode, making each a truly unique and unexpected viewing experience. The CACHE team is working toward a second season and is already seeing new collaborations and projects between artists grow out of OZCast. The Artists This piece is the continuation of a series of interviews with artists involved with OZCast's pilot season. Here, dance- theater artist Blake Worthey, "flesh-centric" content creators Milk and Honey, and choreographer and dancer Robyn Jordan reflect on their inclusion in Episodes 2 and 3 of OZCast. Blake Worthey On working to change perceptions around art: As a human being, but also as a liaison with CACHE, I think a big part of what we're doing is trying to kind of re-brand art-making. That art- making isn't just for the elite and its products aren't just to distract and just to escape, but art-making can be a place for folks to convene. We want to remind people about its power and its potential that it already has in folks' lives; this isn't something that we're trying to sell and make up. Like, could you imagine trying to get through this pandemic without Netflix? Absolutely not. Could you imagine trying to get through this pandemic without going to a grocery store, that some artist had to design? Not to be one of those people, but art is an inextricable part of our everyday lives, and I think we want to point that out to people — that it's already here, and you've already brought it to yourself. We're just kind of facilitating it. FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 6, 2021 WHAT'S UP! 9 FEATURE See Ozcast Page 10 "I needed to make work that is worthy of this time, that is reacting to this time, that took some craft and care and energy — all of the things that I would want to live my non-artistic life with, I need to imbue that into my art," shares dance-theater artist Blake Worthey, featured in Episode 2. "All of the care, all of the honor, all of the focus, all of the speaking truth to power — all of those things I want to do in my pedestrian life, they needed to be there in my artistic life, too." (Courtesy Photo/CACHE) Worthey One of four featured artists in the OZCast Season 1 finale, Lisa Uribe is vice-chairman and associate professor of music at the University of Arkansas. In response to the theme for Episode 15, "Choose to Sing," Uribe performs "Swan Song," composed by her dear friend Katherine Murdock. She came to this piece silenced by a pandemic, as part of groups silenced by default: as a denouncer of those complicit in silence. Murdock leaves the end of her piece in an unresolved gesture, a choice to live or to die. Uribe chooses to sing. (Courtesy Photo/CACHE)