- UALR: You are fairly new to Little Rock. What were your first impressions of the city in terms of art and culture?
- Belcher: I was blown away. It’s far superior to what one might expect from a city this size. It is here because of the blood, sweat, and tears of generations who have worked very hard to build strong infrastructure for the arts in our community.
- UALR: Why is it important for universities to form partnerships with local arts organizations?
- Belcher: From the University’s perspective, the art organizations, in some ways, become our laboratories. For example, our art students spend a great deal of time at the Arkansas Arts Center. It’s hard to really have a thorough understanding of the arts unless you are experiencing them. We have an arrangement with the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, which allows our students to do capstone projects while working a professional show. Guest artists who come to Little Rock in association with local arts organizations work with students in workshop experiences and master classes, so arts students at UALR have remarkable opportunities that students at most other universities rarely have. And it works well for the arts organizations. They have access to our faculty experts as well as our students - many of whom are working in the local professional theaters.
- UALR: From an economic standpoint, why is a thriving arts community important?
- Belcher: I think on a broad level, when companies are looking to locate in a city they realize quality-of-life issues are important to staff recruitment. Top talent is very picky about where they want to live, and the arts and cultural environment is simply one of those facets in attracting business to a community.
- UALR: How important is it for you personally to live in a cultural community?
- Belcher: It’s essential. Before my wife and I moved to Little Rock I was considering the same position at another university. But when we looked at the cultural life of the area and realized how limited it was, I made a decision not to continue in that process. We are both musicians, performers, and consumers of the arts. It’s very important to us to be in a place where we have that personal artistic outlet for everything ranging from entertainment to inspiration and to education.
- UALR: What’s your favorite experience as a performer that you’ve had here in Little Rock?
- Belcher: Last March I performed with Drew Irvin and Meredith Maddox at the Clinton Library in the River Rhapsodies Chamber Series that the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra sponsors. That was a treat in many ways. They are great performers, and it is a spectacular venue for performance.
- UALR: Do you have one memorable moment about an event when you thought, “Wow, this is really happening in Little Rock”?
- Belcher: I’ll narrow it down to four. First, this may not be what you expect me to say, but during the week of the Clinton Library opening in November 2004, going to Aretha Franklin at Robinson Auditorium was just a huge highlight. I just had a blast; she’s the ultimate performer! And, I’ll mention three experiences I had in very different venues last winter/spring. I went to a performance of Fences at The Rep, and I was just floored with how wonderful it was. Then, not long there after, I saw this incredible turned-wood exhibit at the Arts Center – just some of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen. And I was at a Symphony concert where the orchestra per-formed one of the great warhorses of symphonic liter-ature, the “Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony,” and it was simply an electric performance. David Itkin and the Symphony musicians were on fire.
- UALR: It’s amazing that Little Rock can attract the David Itkins and the Bob Hupps of the world. What are their motivations for staying in Little Rock?
- Belcher: Little Rock has a long dedicated history of caring about the arts and culture community and wanting to have superb offerings. It’s a city that’s not just bringing in the next show available; our arts organizations are defined by vision. They each have a sense of who they are and where they are. They have long-range goals and dreams of what they might become. Arkansas has an entrepreneurial spirit, a can-do attitude, so when it comes to the arts, you have people not scared of the challenges but saying, ‘OK, what is it going to take to make this happen?’ In the long run for artists like these who have opportunities to go many other places, the fundamental commitment of this community to the arts is one of the foundational issues.
- UALR: What’s ahead for Arkansas’ art culture?
- Belcher: Little Rock attracts what Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, which is framed in the nationwide conversation as that element that will drive the new world economy. It’s people who think out-of-the-box, entrepreneurs, people who value the cultural life. It’s the bright 20 and 30 year-olds in this city who could be anywhere but they love this place because of what it has to offer. They are not satisfied with just the wonderful cornerstones of our artistic community - the Symphony, the Rep, the Arts Center. They are also interested in new music, in documentary films, in foreign films, in filmmaking, and the literary arts. It excites me that as leaders in Little Rock we get to nurture this next generation. So much is going on in this community at a grassroots level. I think the future is incredibly bright for the cultural life of our part of the state.
Related categories: Fall/Winter 2007, Inside, Sidebar
