PROFILES: Mid-America Arts Alliance
www.maaa.org

Mary Kennedy McCabe, Executive Director
Terry Ferguson, Chair - Omaha, Nebraska

Member States
Arkansas
Kansas
Missouri
Nebraska
Oklahoma
Texas

In 1972, civic leaders from four Midwestern states gathered in the belief that the arts and humanities would flourish on the Great Plains if their states worked together to increase opportunity, education, and rural development. Out of that meeting came Mid-America Arts Alliance, the first regional arts organization in the United States. Today our partner states are Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Driven by our vision to enrich communities through extraordinary cultural experiences, we bring more than 800 exhibitions and performances and more than 1,000 educational activities to more than one million individuals every year. While the majority of these activities occur in our six-state region, many occur nationwide through our touring exhibition programs. Mid-America’s programming is delivered through three program divisions: Visual Arts and Humanities, Performing Arts, and Professional Development.

Mid-America’s Visual Arts and Humanities division is nationally known for its dedication to serving small and midsize museums with diverse, educationally-rich traveling exhibitions. ExhibitsUSA is currently touring 22 exhibitions, ranging from four centuries of Inuit art from the Heard Museum (Arctic Spirit) to the contemporary Latin American painting collection from the Sprint Nextel Corporation (Cardinal Points/Cardinale Pointes). NEH on the Road extends the best of National Endowment for the Humanities-supported exhibitions to small and midsize institutions. Exhibitions include Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian Kente and African American Identity from the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA to Asian Games: The Art of Contest from the Asia Society.

Support for touring performing artists is the primary focus of Mid-America’s Performing Arts division, with its Regional Touring Program, Latino Culture Project and Enhance Dance initiatives at the forefront. Currently the Performing Arts division is engaged in revamping existing programs and it is anticipated that a modified program structure will emerge in spring 2009.

HELP Governance, Job Alike, and the Ozarks Plateau Initiative are the three major Professional Development programs. HELP (Hands-On Experiential Learning Project) Governance is providing professional training to the boards and staff of 80 rural museums in Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska and Missouri with major support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Job-Alike is a program that brings together staffers from member state arts agencies to share best practices and offers professional development opportunities. And the Ozarks Plateau Initiative is brings exhibitions and thematically related performances to organizations in four rural Ozarks communities with limited access to cultural opportunities.

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