Artist-in-ATHICA: Georgia Fine Arts Academy

July 11, 2023
Updates

July 1-July 31, 2023
Artist-in-ATHICA: Georgia Fine Arts Academy

ATHICA is delighted to announce that the fine people of the Georgia Fine Arts Academy will be taking over ATHICA during the weeks of July 1-July 31, 2023.  Their energy and enthusiasm will be filling the space with workshops, presentations, performances, and more.  The Georgia Fine Arts Academy has a long history of providing eclectic programming, professional development, and fun to the Athens area, and they are in the midst of a renaissance fueled in part by UGA’s I-Corps innovation accelerator program.  They will be using their residency to demonstrate the range of offerings they will provide as they go forward, as a proof-of-concept and an invitation to old friends and new to take part in their collaborative and innovative vision.

According to GFAA Creative Director Joy Ovington, “The Georgia Fine Arts Academy will be relaunching, recreating and remaking itself in July of 2023, thanks to the generosity of local arts mainstay, ATHICA.  We’ll be ‘coming in hot’ as we host our professional academy of instructors, sharing their collective decades of experience with the Athens community in Creative Writing, Theatre and Film Studies.”

They will host over two dozen events during their take-over. Some highlights include:

    • Musical theatre and movement workshops for children ages 5 to 12 will be led by the Eva Elarbee, a native Athenian with 11 years of dance teaching experience and a life-long love of creative movement. She teaches with the Joan Mann Dance Studio in Watkinsville and has choreographed musicals for Athens Creative Theatre and Westminster Christian Academy.
    • Creative writing workshops will be led by Tracy Coley and Bowen Craig, both multi-talented writers and publishers.
    • Podcasting how-to’s will be led by nationally-followed podcaster and local Athenian Aaron Strand
    • A four-part seminar series “The Rise of Documentary Filmmaking from 1960 to the Present Day,” will be presented on Tuesday evenings by film-maker Bill Cody, well-known locally for Athens, GA/Inside-Out.
    • Professional Filmmaking and On-Camera Acting Technique events will be presented by Fr3deR1cK Taylor and Kathleen Hogan, respectively.

A complete schedule with links to more information and registration opportunities follows below.

The purpose of the residency is to foster the development of artists and their artistic works and to enrich the programmatic offerings and community experience provided by ATHICA. For more information about the ATHICA artist-in residence program, to apply, and to see previous residents, see: Artist-in-ATHICA

More About the Georgia Fine Arts Academy
The Georgia Fine Arts Academy, a registered nonprofit organization since 1980, has been supporting the arts and humanities in Georgia for over four decades, enriching lives through arts education.  Holding intensive summer arts camps in the 1980’s and arts-designed programs for “troubled” children in the 1990’s, late founder William E. Bray wanted to improve the lives of the children of the future. They hold the annual Café Apollinaire showcase, in which the talents of Athenians in a range of artistic disciplines are highlighted, including Theatre Arts, Media Arts, Creative Writing, Visual Arts, Music, and Dance .Joy Ovington, Creative Director of the Georgia Fine Arts Academy, and Bowen Craig, the Georgia Fine Arts Academy Board President, are leading the residency at ATHICA.

Web: www.georgiafinearts.org
Facebook: @GeorgiaFineArtsAcademy
Instagram: @georgiafineartsacademy

More About Joy Ovington and Bowen Craig

Joy Ovington hit the stage tapping to “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” at the age of five. Since then she’s logged over four decades of experience performing, teaching, and working all aspects of technical theatre, film and arts administration. She studied Theatre at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, the University of Alabama, where she was an Irene Ryan Award Finalist, and with the National Theatre of Great Britain Summer Acting Programme at Cornell University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Florida State University/Asolo Conservatory for Professional Actor Training, where she was inducted into the Society of American Fight Directors, performed with the Asolo Repertory Theatre, and joined film students in winning a College Television Emmy. She’s worked with numerous regional theatre companies such as Circle Theatre in Chicago where she was Jeff Award-Nominated, Charlotte Shakespeare Company, Hersheypark Entertainment, Jenny Wiley Theatre, and has won a choral GLAMA award with Windy City Performing Arts. She was a company member of Athens’ professional theatre company Circle Ensemble Theatre Company. Joy has emceed events, stage-managed fundraisers and music festivals, and hosted an award-winning talk show on St. Louis’ community radio station KDHX. Some favorite posts include managing the Tapis Rouge VIP tent during the Cirque du Soliel’s “Dralion” run in St. Louis, being assistant to the E.D. for Montgomery’s Jubilee CityFest, and teaching Acting at Auburn University. She is excited to be the new Creative Director of the Georgia Fine Arts Academy.

Bowen Craig is Co-Founder and Editorial Director of Athens-based Bilbo Books Publishing, as well as an author who wrote his first book at age twelve and has been editing since age seven. (His mother was an English professor whose students were unaware that their professor’s elementary school-age son was grading their papers). Bo has written three novels, has a couple more in the till, and has contributed to newspapers, magazines, blogs, theatrical productions and films, as well as taught creative writing for various educational entities. His most recent passion continues to be playwriting. A proud native Daltonian, he was graduated from Davidson College and has studied at Flagler College in St. Augustine and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He has also worked as a psychiatric social worker, an environmental fundraiser/lobbyist, and as Board President for the Georgia Fine Arts Academy. He enjoys participating in book clubs and writers’ groups.

Artists-in-ATHICA is sponsored in part by The James E. and Betty J. Huffer Foundation and the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. Georgia Council for the Arts also receives support from its partner agency – the National Endowment for the Arts.

Press Release: https://mailchi.mp/athica/gfaa

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