Current Programs and Partnerships

Due to COVID-19, we are not currently offering programs to our community partners.

Vero Beach Museum of Art – Art for Health’s Sake Program

Movement and Music at the Museum is a weekly class specifically designed in alliance with The Vero Beach Center for Movement and Memory for students diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease incorporating meditation, modern dance and vocal work to stimulate balance, strength, flexibility, while offering participants a safe and fun environment to engage in community.

Movement and Music at Indian River Estates is a weekly movement class for elders who reside at Indian River Estates, a retirement community in Vero Beach.

Long-term Sustained Programming Partnerships

Florida Department of Corrections                                                                   1994 – 2016

Inside Out – Expressive Arts Workshops for Incarcerated Women, a unique interdisciplinary, arts-based program that incorporates movement, theatre, writing, drawing, music, storytelling, guided meditation, and performance as tools for personal development.

Voices from Within / Songbird, interactive singing and songwriting workshops focused on developing the participant’s voice as well as creating original songs through songwriting exercises.

EnCORE / Theatre Workshops, theatrical gaming, improvisation, physical characterization, creative writing, and performance build self-confidence, while allowing the participants to approach material at their own pace.

Healing Visual Arts, using a variety of 2D and 3D media, contemporary art history and play to encourage reflection and visual self-expression.

Creative Writing and Poetry, designed to encourage personal reflection and personal narrative while exposing students to a variety of styles, writers while building new rhetorical tools.

Exchange for Change, a writing program that facilitated anonymous writing exchanges between correctional classrooms and local universities and schools.

Raices – Roots of Afro-Cuban Culture, developed to meet the needs of the Latina women based on the Inside Out curriculum; primarily explored the music and dance of the African Diaspora as an educational component to reflect on cultural diversity and cultural identity.

Rites and Passages, a theatre and drumming program for men culminating in a theatrical presentation.

GreenWorks, teaching horticultural, environmental and job skills for men and youth.

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement ®, a means to re-engage the nervous system by reducing unnecessary muscular effort and improving body awareness.

Florida Department of Juvenile Justice                                                             2003 – 2014

Breaking Free – Arts for Girls, adapted from the Inside Out program for adult women to allow a more flexible curriculum in order to better meet the needs of girls in detention and other institutional and/or community settings. Breaking Free sought to provide a safe space for girls to share and explore their emotions, to build trusting relationships, to find their own creative voice, and to develop a sense of community with each other and improve relationships.

Rhythms of Life, a unique music program specifically designed for youth in a variety of settings. The workshops were a cultural exploration through rhythm studies to better understand the African heritage spectrum of the Americas.

Community Mural Project, conducted with boys housed within the juvenile justice system to create a mural on the compound of the Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

GreenWorks

Healing Visual Arts

COI – Children of Inmates Network                                                                 2012 – 2014

Breaking Free – Arts for Girls

Rhythms of Life

TACOLCY Community Center                                                                        2009 – 2012

Breaking Free – Arts for Girls

Rhythms of Life

Community Mural Project, created on a public building in Liberty City

GreenWorks

Operation PAR Inc/ PAR Village                                                                      2004-05/2011-13

Inside Out – Expressive Arts Workshops

Pinellas County Jail                                                                                             2002 – 2010

Inside Out – Expressive Arts Workshops for Incarcerated Women

CHARLEE Gladstone Center for Girls                                                            2003 – 2007

Breaking Free – Arts for Girls

Past Community Partnership Programs

Any One of Us: Words from Prison, Miami                                                     2007 Oct 18

ArtSpring and Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade joined forces to present Any One of Us: Words from Prison, Miami, a theater production conceived by playwright Eve Ensler, renowned for her pioneering work The Vagina Monologues, on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, Miami. Any One of Us, Miami focused on the connection between women in prison and the violence that often brings them there. The Miami production was staged and directed by ArtSpring founder and artistic director Leslie Neal using a script comprised entirely of writings by women serving time behind bars, featuring narratives by women in prison in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Their experiences came alive with readings by a cast of Florida artists, advocates, and community leaders—including Dr. Laura Bedard, Deputy Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson, television host Hunter Reno, and many others. Acclaimed songwriter and Carbonell Award nominee Amy Carol Webb performed her original score, written especially for this occasion. The Seminole Tribe of Florida was the Diamond Sponsor of Any One of Us, Miami. Proceeds from the evening helped to support programs in prison taught by ArtSpring, The Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade County and V-Day, a worldwide effort created by Eve Ensler to end violence against women.

Bridging the GAP Writing Workshop                                                              2006 – 2007

Bridging the Gap (BGAP) was a 12 week writing workshop for women incarcerated at both Broward Correctional Institution (BCI) and Homestead Correctional Institution (HCI) to write personal narrative essays that were then shared with girls in the Miami-Dade Regional Juvenile Detention Center. The essays highlighted regrets and losses the women have experienced as a result of their mistakes as well as the shared background of abuse that led them to make bad choices. The project was a collaborative effort between the Florida Departments of Corrections and Juvenile Justice, the Girls Advocacy Project (GAP), ArtSpring, and community volunteer Vicki Lopez Lukis, an ex-offender, who served as Vice-Chair of the Governor’s Ex-Offender Task Force under Governor Jeb Bush.