Alabamians to Receive Society for the Fine Arts Awards from UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A Fairhope dancer and arts patron, a University of Alabama graduate and noted poet, and two Alabama arts organizations will be honored for their contributions to the arts by The University of Alabama’s College of Arts and Sciences during its annual awards gala Thursday, Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Morgan Hall theatre at 7:30 p.m. The gala will include performances presented by UA fine and performing arts programs.

The ceremony celebrates the 27th anniversary of the Society for the Fine Arts and the 19th consecutive year that the arts support group has recognized Alabamians and UA alumni who have made an impact on the creative and performing arts in Alabama.

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Olin will present the awards. Recipients and their awards are:

Gage Bush Englund
Patron of the Arts Award

Gage Bush Englund, a Birmingham native and long-time resident of Fairhope, will receive the Patron of the Arts Award for her contributions to dance and to The University of Alabama. Englund, a member of the board of directors of the American Ballet Theatre of New York, was instrumental in forming a partnership between that prestigious national dance company and UA to establish The American Ballet Theater Summer Intensive at The University of Alabama. In existence since 1997, the program attracts 200 dancers from around the country for a three-week dance training residency at UA. Seminars are held on dance history, nutrition and choreography. National demand for entry into the summer program is highly competitive through auditions in seven major U.S. cities each spring.

Englund and her late husband, Richard, also founded the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, the educational art of the American Ballet Theatre. She has provided essential support to this program for 28 years and served as its Ballet Mistress.

The New York Times recently called the ABT Studio Company “one of the great success stories in dance in recent years.”

Maurice Manning
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival Alumni Arts Award

Nationally recognized poet Maurice Manning, a native of Kentucky, will receive the Alumni Arts Award. Manning received his master of fine arts degree in creative writing from The University of Alabama in 1999 and held a fellowship at the prestigious Fine Arts Work Center in Providence, Mass. the following year. He is the author of the critically acclaimed collection of poems, “Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions,” winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. The book includes 58 poems featuring Lawrence Booth, a fictional character described by Publisher’s Weekly as “equal parts carnivorous nightmare, Freudian pastoral and deep-fired family romance.” Nationally noted poet W. S. Merwin, who served as the sole judge for the competition, called Manning’s work authoritative and daring with “a language of color and sure movement.”

Manning teaches literature and creative writing at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind.

Alabama Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts
Alabama Image Award

Members of The Alabama Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts will receive the Alabama Image Award for organizing Voices Risings; an art exhibition featuring Alabama women artists that was held for four months last year in The National Museum of Women in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, which is now touring major city museums in Alabama, offers viewers a diverse and freshly arresting perspective on the work, philosophies, and original voices of 12 of Alabama’s most noted artists who are women. The members of the committee are Ann W. Reynolds, Catherine Cabaniss, Pauline Ireland, Alice Williams, Margaret Livingston, Carol Ballard, Mary Katherine Blount, Susan Reeves, Helen Vaughn and Betty Grisham. Artists featured in the exhibition are Janice Kluge, Sonja Rieger, Lucy Jaffe and Melissa Springer of Birmingham; Pinky Bass of Fairhope; Frances de la Rosa of Uniontown; Susan Downing of Mobile; Dale Kennington of Dothan; Anne Lucas of Prattville; Mary Ann Pope of Huntsville; Laura Prange of Lafayette; and Anne Tolliver of Montgomery.

The Alabama Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts will be honored for advancing the arts in Alabama and for bringing positive recognition to Alabama artists.

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival
Alabama Image Award

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival of Montgomery will also receive the Alabama Image Award. The Southeast’s largest regional theatre, inspired by the vision of Winton and Carolyn Blount, presents more than 400 performances each year. As the fifth largest Shakespeare festival in the world, artists are trained to the highest standards in the Festival’s equity candidate professional acting program and in the master of fine arts degree program, offered in partnership with The University of Alabama. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival will be recognized for opening up the world of theatre to this state and region with its’ superior educational programs and for positively impacting the state’s reputation in the arts.

The Society for the Fine Arts is a part of the College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Board. The board consists of 80 alumni and friends who serve as supporters and advisors to the College.

For more information about the gala, contact Bobbie Rafferty, coordinator of College advancement, at 348-6698.

The College of Arts and Sciences is The University of Alabama’s largest division with over 6,000 students and 360 faculty members. It is the state’s largest public liberal arts college and has Alabama’s most comprehensive undergraduate and graduate programs in the fine and performing arts.