From the Director

Collaboration and partnership-as a means of contextualizing and enhancing an organization’s primary purposes, reinforcing its mission and values, and extending its reach-is a growing and healthy trend in the arts. UMMA’s current exhibition Photoformance: An Empathic Environment perfectly embodies the sort of collaborative offering that the Museum has increasingly embarked on since our expansion two years ago. Conceived as a collaboration by three renowned artists with UM ties-Monica Ponce de Leon, Ernestine Ruben, and Peter Sparling-the piece weaves together architecture, sculpture, video, dance, and photography in a multisensory dialogue in the Museum’s most visible gallery space, the Irving Stenn, Jr, Family Project Gallery.

On the programming front, the Museum presented numerous collaborative events over the academic year that just ended. The very popular concert series organized with the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance included the recent 6 x 8, in which more than 400 patrons enjoyed six new eight-minute operas created by UM graduate student composers and performed by UM student musicians and vocalists from the UM opera studio. With the University Musical Society and several other key partners, the Museum presented MacArthur Fellow Aaron Dworkin’s multimedia piece Metamorphosis to a full house, and two programs- including an engaging discussion on aging and the creative process-in conjunction with the Merce Cunningham Dance Group’s Ann Arbor performances.

Other outstanding ongoing collaborations that have brought distinguished artists to the Museum include the Zell Visiting Writers Series, the Ark at UMMA student-songwriters series, and UMMA’s growing jazz series, which now counts as one of the best opportunities to hear jazz in the area. As you will see in the program pages, our partnership with the Ann Arbor Art Center continues to thrive, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival has come on board again this year, and we unveil a new collaboration with M-Healthy-weekly yoga classes in the beautiful surroundings of the Apse!

Finally, don’t miss the feature story in this issue highlighting our partnership with two area caregiving institutions-St. Joseph Mercy Health System’s Huron Woods and the University of Michigan Health System’s Turner Geriatric Center Silver Club-to provide Museum tours designed for visitors with dementia. I am so grateful to our outstanding docents and the entire Education department for spearheading this important service and for making the Museum ever more accessible to all of our visitors.

Warmest regards,

Joseph Rosa
Director

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