The Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University is committed to bringing the world to YOUR stage. As a nationally renowned presenter, our team strives to ensure that the Quick is a space for our community of curious, thoughtful, and engaging patrons who want to experience the world in their own backyard. By attending performances, becoming Quick Members, donating to the Quick, volunteering, or engaging in one of our free programs, you share our excitement for doing what we do best – providing artists invaluable space to share their work with audiences who want to be a part of something special.
When we began our partnership with nora chipaumire, we knew that her work would push Quick patrons beyond their comfort zone as we provided a space for artistic inquiry that connects deeply with our mission. In November 2019, that partnership blossomed as nora became a Quick Center artist-in-residence to create her new opera, NEHANDA. Due to the pandemic, what could have been a project cut short became an opportunity for the Quick and Fairfield University to serve as a space for creation through a three-month bubble residency supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which earned the Quick a $300,000 grant – one of the largest to date for our center.
Since that time, NEHANDA has toured the world including the full five-hour presentation on our stage in 2022. Now, NEHANDA makes its final tour, with dates at ArtsEmerson in Boston, FTA in Montreal, and closing with the full opera being presented at Lincoln Center in the Alice Tully Hall on Saturday, June 10.
This kind of artmaking requires incredible commitment from the artist, presenters, commissioners, and so many others. Through this partnership, the Quick has been acknowledged as not only a nationally recognized presenter, but also as a visionary force for supporting the creation of new work that deeply serves our community through student and faculty engagement, educational programs through our Arts for All program that serves local under-resourced youth, and the opportunity for our patrons to experience art of the highest-caliber.
The partnership continues in September 2023 as nora returns to Fairfield University as a Senior Fellow in the Arts as part of the College of Arts & Sciences. She will spend more than three weeks on campus with new collaborators from Senegal and Zimbabwe to reconsider Beckett’s Waiting for Godot but with a take that can only be offered from nora chipaumire. The details of this U.S. Premiere and more are just weeks away as we announce the new Quick Center 2023/24 season and we look forward to inviting you to join us for the process.
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