ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Belle Isle and Beyond was an arts and environment pilot project developed in 2018-19 by an interdisciplinary team of University of Michigan faculty and students working in collaboration with several Detroit partners, including the Belle Isle Nature Center, the Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences (DAAS), and Detroit's Big Red Wall Dance Company. The project cultivated understandings of relationships between natural and built environments in Detroit, with a particular emphasis on water quality and use. An embodied, imaginative, and reflective engagement with nature was encouraged throughout. The project also strengthened ties between the Ann Arbor/University community and the Detroit community. University of Michigan team members recognized their visitor status in regard to working in sites in Detroit, and very much appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with Detroit native and U-M BFA Dance alumna Erika Stowall and her DAAS middle school dance students, and to learn more about Detroit’s beloved Belle Isle. The Belle Isle Nature Center(BINC) was a generous host for the project.
The project had two major components and several outcomes. First, a series of ten dance, visual art, and sound recording workshops were offered to a group of Stowall's students. The workshops took place February through May 2019 . BINC education specialists led nature walks that were integrated with arts activities led by U-M faculty and students. An exhibit about the workshops was on display at BINC in June 2019. The exhibit featured collage artworks inspired by Michigan fauna and flora, created by the DAAS students. The DAAS students also collaborated in creating a dance that was performed at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History on their year-end dance recital in May 2019. Entitled We're All Connected, to a song of the same title by Stan Slaughter/Tall Oak Music, the dance was based upon ideas about ecology explored within the workshops.
The second component built upon themes investigated by the middle school students. U-M's Ann Arbor Dance Works collaborated with Detroit's Big Red Wall Dance Company to create a family-oriented site-specific dance performance with original music by Michael Gurevich and Tessa Fornari. Like the overarching project, the performance was entitled Belle Isle and Beyond. It was presented on sites within and nearby the Belle Isle Nature Center on June 8 & 9, 2019. The performance celebrated Belle Isle's natural settings and its ongoing restoration initiatives, with a culminating scene that took place immersed in Lake Muskoday. Some of the sound recordings that were captured by the DAAS students in their sound recording workshop were included in the score for the site specific performance.
The project serves as a pilot for future community arts and environmental stewardship projects, especially those in which the voices of community members are centralized and celebrated.
Jessica Fogel, Project Director