Launching The Visiting Artist Series Educational Resources

​For over 46 years, dancers, actors, singers, musicians, and authors have traveled from across the United States—and occasionally from across the world—for a week in residence with Quad City Arts through our longstanding Visiting Artist Series program. The resulting performances reach tens of thousands of students each season.

When coronavirus precautions made it impossible for artists to visit students in person, we decided to bring the artists, their talents, their performances to students through a multimedia collection: The Visiting Artist Series Educational Resources project. The website offers content from professional artists and ensembles, including brief demonstration videos, study guides, workshop-style videos, and more, all coordinated by Quad City Arts. Each video is subtitled in English and Spanish, allowing a broad audience to access our Educational Resources.​ This collection of resources stands in for the planned in-person educational residency activities for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. 
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This series has transformed from a traveling residency that physically brings performing artists to schools and community sites into this unique online resource. The talent and topics available through the Educational Resources is truly exclusive. We are presenting artists who are not typically hosted in the area, who are sharing content specifically curated for our students, our schools, and this time in history.

The roster for the resource website includes groups like a hip-hop ballet company of black professional
dancers, a steel pan artist, a Chicago-based Japanese drumming ensemble, and an East Coast theatre rep company -- arts experiences that students would otherwise not have access to.

Many of the artists included in the Educational Resources site were originally scheduled for an in-person residency in the Quad Cities for this season of the Visiting Artist Series.
 
The series’ change from in-person residency activities to an online resource center for teachers and parents is not only safe for everyone involved, it allows our artists in residence to present brief videos or documents that complement the classroom curriculum, and it broadens access.
 
In a typical season, we serve schools in over a dozen districts in both Iowa and Illinois. For our 2019-2020 season, we served 14 districts, which is a high point for us. The limit on serving more districts and more schools, more students, has always been about the logistics of getting artists to area schools within the constraints of the daily school schedule.
 

Simply Three at North Scott District Elementary School, Visiting Artist Series April 2017

Mexico Beyond Mariachi at Hillcrest Elementary School, February 2020

The Moxie Strings at Bettendorf Middle School, January 2019

The series is no longer limited to performances in a school space during class hours; this exclusive content from 11+ artists is available to students at any school in the area at any time.
 
Now that we are moving to an online model, the series is accessible to wherever students and the internet are -- public and private schools, homeschooling groups, even non-traditional schooling sites like detention centers and hospitals. Teachers, students, and parents can access performing artists' resources on any device connected to the internet, anytime, anywhere.
 
Another benefit of this model is that schools can access all of the artists instead of picking to host just one or two for their students. The entire season of artists “in residence” with the Visiting Artist Series  is available, from musicians to actors, dancers to storytellers.
 
We hope that you will find something enlightening and delightful in the work of these artists and welcome your feedback. Enjoy!
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SIGN UP FOR THE VISITING ARTIST SERIES EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TODAY!

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Since its beginning in 1974, the Visiting Artist Series has always been a unique cultural asset in the Quad Cities. The series has engaged Quad City residents of all ages in quality arts experiences with professional performing artists. Artists of various disciplines present demonstrations, workshops, and master classes at preK sites, elementary, intermediate, and high schools as well as college campuses and community organizations.
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Quad City Arts is a non-profit organization, dedicated to enriching the quality of life in the Quad City region through the arts. The organization’s dual role of presenting the arts and humanities, as well as serving as an arts resource, allows us to serve more than 350,000 people annually in the Arts Center in Rock Island and at over 200 rural and urban community sites. Make a tax-deductible donation to Quad City Arts and support art in your community for the next 50 years!

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