Theatre

Related Links: School of Theatre Department of Dance

The performing arts are prospering in the vicinity of the Ringling Museum with FSU’s Asolo Theatre. The historic Scottish theater interior and other facilities within the FSU Ringling complex provide ideal venues and the home of The FSU/Asolo Conservatory, a three-year training program leading to a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting. Hundreds of students from throughout the nation audition for the ten openings in each entering class. When the new students arrive on the Sarasota campus, they discover a beautiful and functional building dedicated to the performing arts, which houses the Conservatory, the Asolo Theatre Company and the Sarasota Ballet. For the next three years, the students study and perform at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts under the direction of university faculty members and professional artists from the Asolo Theatre Company. The students also spend one term at the FSU London Study Centre.

This joint program for the graduate students -- the Conservatory and Asolo -- can be compared to the relationship of a university and a teaching hospital. The students take their basic training in the Conservatory and then do their final studies as part of the professional Asolo Theatre Company. When they are finished, they hold Equity cards and are ready to enter the professional world. This unique partnership provides one the finest educations possible for students of theatre.

As members of the Sarasota community, the FSU students are enriched by their association with the various professional arts organizations. Sarasota embraces and supports the arts in a manner that makes it the most active arts community, for its size, in the state and perhaps in the country. FSU students have access to wonderful resources in all of the performing and visual arts. In turn, the students join the professional artists of the Asolo in providing exceptional entertainment for the community. The Sarasota community has embraced the FSU students and demonstrated its support by creating scholarships to underwrite the studies for these talented young artists. Sarasota is a very special home for FSU's School of Theatre and its Acting Conservatory and the rewards are plentiful for both the university and the community.

The FSU Theatre program will also explore a more comprehensive program of K-12 outreach beginning with schools in Manatee and Sarasota counties, but ultimately looking to a larger geographic outreach.

Dance

The FSU-Ringling arts complex will include contributions from FSU’s renowned Department of Dance. FSU Dance has already established its presence in museums around the state, especially the Appleton Museum of Art, where "Dance at the Appleton" is an annual event. Members of the traveling dance ensemble, the Dance Repertory Theatre, present a dance dialogue where art, music, and movement are integrated with involvement from a broad range of audiences.

Modeled after the Appleton program, the Dance Repertory Theatre in a three-day residency at the Ringling Museum will conduct similar dance dialogues and performances during the 2000-01 year for a variety of special audiences. The artistic director, Professor Lynda Davis, will begin discussions with the Ringling Museum leadership to design activities specific to the needs of the targeted audiences.

Pursuant to legislative direction, the Department of Dance is planning for a year-round dance presence in Sarasota. The program, as presently planned, involves a select number of high school juniors and seniors and students in the freshman and sophomore years of college. The project will establish a permanent dance faculty in Sarasota as part of the FSU Ringling Arts complex. A mutually beneficial relationship with the Sarasota Ballet is also a possibility.

The School of Visual Arts & Dance also proposes to offer FSU Dance on Tour, a new program, subject to funding. Professor Elizabeth Patenaude, chair of the Department of Dance, together with other faculty will select the most outstanding choreographic works from the 2000-2001 season to create this special concert featuring only the finest dancers. The pieces will be selected during the last week in April and will be rehearsed during the first summer session in May. The performances would be held during the first two weeks in June, assuming the availability of production space in the FSU Performing Arts Center. Two performances of this special concert will be planned.

To expand the contributions by the FSU Department of Dance, the center will seek additional funding from public and private sources. Particularly important is the need to address the space needs for the dance program.

Music

A variety of chamber music ensembles and solo artists from Florida State University’s School of Music are frequent performers at the Appleton and other museums in the state. The School is interested in expanding this activity to use music to complement major museum exhibitions (e. g., performers by the School’s widely recognized "Renaissance Ensemble," which has been featured nationally on public radio, in conjunction with a Renaissance art exhibit).

With a rich musical life and musical tradition, the School of Music is also interested in strengthening ties and establishing further relationships with musical organizations in the Sarasota area. Music already has a special scholarship program for students from Sarasota County, and we would be interested in developing an outreach program of musical performances in the schools and community. In fact, the School of Music has a broad array of student performing organizations available for touring, not only traditional bands, orchestras, and choruses, but also World Music ensembles, jazz bands, and early music performing groups. In addition, the School will consider developing an opera-touring group that would specialize in outreach performances for schools and community organizations. Faculty soloists and ensembles are also available, including the nationally known "Florida State Brass Quintet," "Baroque Southeast," and "Trio Con Brio," all recent performers at Carnegie Hall.

Circus

Related Link: Flying High Circus

Florida State University is the only major university in the world with a traditional American 3-ring circus staged under its own Big Top circus tent. It is billed as "the Greatest Collegiate Show on Earth: The Flying High Circus!" The Ringling Circus Museum, soon to be expanded, will offer a wonderful and unique partnership opportunity for the FSU Circus. Founded in 1947, the Flying High Circus is an extra-curricular activity within the Division for Student Affairs. It has earned a strong reputation for providing family entertainment as well as presenting the circus as a performing arts medium. FSU circus performers are required to be degree-seeking students registered at Florida State University. The majority of student performers continue to pursue a career in the academic discipline in which they graduate, though a few go on to professional careers in the circus.

Rivaling professional circuses but without animal acts, the FSU Circus is primarily an aerial and stage presentation with l8 to 22 circus acts in three rings of spellbinding entertainment for everyone. The students act as their own riggers and sew their own costumes. They have appeared in Europe, Canada, the Bahamas, the West Indies and many other cities in the United States. The Florida State University Circus has been featured on national television and has frequently been named as one of the Southeast Tourism Society’s Top 20 Events.

There are natural affinities between the Flying High Circus and the Ringling. The association could promote visibility for the Ringling Circus Museum and FSU’s Flying High Circus, provide a venue to showcase FSU’s students and their accomplishments in the circus performing arts fields, establish a Flying High Circus exhibition of memorabilia housed at the Museum, accommodate circus collections donated to the FSU Circus for display, and help generate interest in the Circus Museum through the educational connection for students who attend FSU and "run away with the circus" without ever leaving Florida.

There is another FSU and Sarasota connection with the circus: In late 1981, Sarasota’s Jerry Collins (long time circus owner), donated the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Circus to Florida State University, citing the University’s long circus tradition and the Flying High Circus as "the best in the world." His reason for the gift was "to benefit people of all ages, to preserve the circus for the children and to help the students at FSU."

Joint Marketing

In reviewing the collaboration possibilities, there needs to be close attention to the possibility of joint marketing activities between the university, and Ringling and the Appleton Museum.

Equally important, coordination between the Ringling, the FSU theatre program and the Asolo can lead to great benefits. It is easy to imagine promotion of the FSU Ringling Center as an important destination for those who enjoy art, theatre and dance. If properly supported, there is every reason to believe that the Center can become even better known and appreciated as one of the truly elegant cultural sites in the nation.