LEFT: AKAdeMIX Dance Crew at UVA Arts Annual Welcome Picnic on Arts Grounds. Image by Coe Sweet. RIGHT: Detail from the series Papalotes en Resistencia, by Federico Cuatlacuatl. Image by Emma Terry.

Letter

Welcome Back!!

All of us in the UVA Arts community continue to work through the unimaginable loss we suffered as a result of the tragic events last November that took place right here on Arts Grounds. We continue to offer our support to the survivors of this tragedy and to the whole UVA community.

It is in times like these that we are also reminded of the power of the arts to fill our lives in the best of times and to provide us outlets for our complex emotions as we continue to move forward in the only way we can – together. Our primary mission at UVA Arts, to continue to lift and provide a platform to the extraordinary range of creative talent we have here at UVA, has never felt more important than it does today.

We know that our students and our faculty will head into the new year with a renewed commitment to make and share their extraordinary work. We look forward to sharing and spotlighting that work with the UVA community, the larger community here in Charlottesville, and with alumni and friends around the world.

We wanted to start the year by sharing some stories about the power of the arts, including one about the recent residency by improvisational jazz great Bill Cole and his Untempered Ensemble. The residency, organized and implemented by students in George Sampson’s Arts Advisory classes, provided a perfect example of the ways the arts can speak to our hearts even in the darkest of times.

Best wishes,