Panel on 'Social Impact Through the Arts' Thursday

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From top left, Cesar Lopez, Ana Baer and Luis Fernando Restrepo.

RefleXions Music Series, the Honors College and Arkansas Global Changemakers will cohost a panel discussion, Social Impact Through the Arts, from noon to 1:15 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 4, in the Honors College Lounge, room 130, Gearhart Hall, with lunch offered to attendees.

The panel will explore the role of music and the arts in healing and reconciliation, and will also be offered online via Zoom. The event is free and open to the public but registration in advanced is required; please fill out and submit this online attendance form.

If you are attending via Zoom, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting on the day of the event. 

The panel will feature the work of distinguished musicians, artists, activists, and experts in the field of peace building, including:

• Cesar Lopez, musician, composer, activist, UN Non-Violence Messenger and Amnesty International Emissary of Consciousness, and creator of the Escopetarra 
• Ana Baer, video-choreographer, and professor of Dance at Texas State University
• Luis Fernando Restrepo, University Professor and director of the Comparative Literature & Cultural Studies Program at the U of A, and member of the Scholars at Risk Committee

Using Colombia's peace process as the principal focus of conversation, panelists will open their world to discuss our own realities and needs for collective grief and reconciliation in our own backyards.

The panel will be moderated by Rogelio Garcia-Contreras and Lia Uribe and translated by Erika Almenara and will be an opportunity to reflect and learn from the experiences of Lopez, Baer and Restrepo. 

This event also launches the second season of the RefleXions Music Series, a project initially funded by the 2019 University of Arkansas Chancellor's Grant for the Humanities and Performing Arts Initiative. The RefleXions Music Series is a celebration of music, musicians, advocates and audiences, a space to foster creative justice and diversity through opportunities to reflect, learn, grow, change, and teach.

The RefleXions Music Series also propagates sound and messages; expresses the highest standards of music and artistic interpretation; reverses the dynamics of Eurocentric standards; carefully considers contexts, intersectionality, relationships, and crossroads with other disciplines; and celebrates, represents, and includes diverse identities.

The RefleXions team is a collective of Northwest Arkansas individuals from different backgrounds that bring unique perspectives and commitment to the highest standards of scholarship, research, and aesthetic diversity in the arts. The RefleXions team is formed by Department of Music professors Helen Becque, Ronda Mains, Catalina Ortega, Eric Troiano, and Lia Uribe, Erika Almenara from the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Rogelio Garcia-Contreras from the Walton College of Business, and Leigh Wood from KUAF 91.3.

RefleXions Music Series was also the recipient of the Women Giving Circle Grant in 2021 and most recently, the 2021 Artists 360 Community Activator grant. RefleXions has worked with the support of the U of A's Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Music, Honors College, and KUAF 91.3, and has collaborated with art leaders from the Walton Arts Center, CACHE, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, IDEALS Institute, Northwest Arkansas Council and Might-T-By-Design.

The RefleXions Music Series has previously presented virtual residencies featuring Sing for Hope in 2020 and Imani Winds in 2021.