Performing Arts Fellowships

The Wyoming Arts Council’s Performing Arts Fellowship program was created in 1990 and are given to honor excellence in the artists’ field and are based on appropriate media samples and artist statements in Music and Theatre/Dance.

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About the Performing Arts Fellowship

Performing Arts Fellowships are $5,000 unrestricted awards of merit that are given in honor of excellence in the artist’s field. They are juried by noted professionals in the field based on appropriate media samples and artist statements. Up to four fellowships may be awarded; two in the category of Music and two in the category of Theatre and Dance.

2025 Performing Arts Fellowship Info

2025 Application Window: April 28 – June 10, 2025

 

ELIGIBILITY

 

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Theatre and Dance)

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Music)

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (All)

Meet the 2025 Jurors

Music Juror

Bassist, composer, and educator Matt Smiley navigates his broad sonic world with imagination, openness, and artistic vision. Matt merges his deep roots in the jazz bass tradition with modern explorations of sound, texture, and improvisation from the world of contemporary composition, making him a favorite and frequent collaborator of creative musicians across a variety of musical genres.

Matt has toured nationally and internationally, appearing on stages, festival performances, and university residencies in the United States, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands. He has performed with bandleaders and composers including David Murray, Terrell Stafford, Greg Osby, Vinny Golia, Tony Malaby, and Sam Newsome. Matt leads frequent workshops and lessons on improvisation, jazz bass, and composition, working with educational partners including Denver School of the Arts, the Gift of Jazz, and Casper College.

Improvisation and collaboration are the common threads across Matt’s recorded albums as a bandleader. His recent album Binnen Buiten features his mentor David Pope on tenor saxophone, and drummers Dru Heller and Ron Coulter, playing open form improvisation, gestures, and jazz standard forms. Matt received a bachelor’s degree in music industry with a jazz studies minor from James Madison University. Matt moved to Colorado to attend graduate school at the University of Northern Colorado, where he graduated with a master’s degree in jazz studies. He completed a doctorate at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and currently teaches adjunct in the jazz studies department at Boulder. Matt was recently awarded with a MacDowell 2024 Fellowship and Aaron Copland 2024 Fellowship.

Theatre and Dance Juror

Azaria Hogans is a mother, freelance dancer, choreographer, artist scholar, and educator. She holds a M.F.A. in dance from Texas Woman’s University where she expanded her research on Black modern dance. Azaria received her B.A. in Spanish with minors in both dance and creative arts therapy (dance) at Georgia College. Azaria serves as a founding board member and the Manager of Resources and Archives for kNOwBOX dance.

Currently, Azaria is an Associate Professor and Dance Area Coordinator at Missouri State University and covers an array of classes including contemporary, jazz, contact improvisation, dance history, composition, and West African dance forms. She has presented and performed works both nationally and internationally including Symposium on Performance of the African Diaspora as Social Change Conference, American College Dance Association (South-Central, South-East, and Central) conferences, World Dance Alliance Puebla, Mexico, Women in Dance Leadership Conference, UNT’s Gospel Meets Jazz, Sant’Agata Central Plaza, Sant’Agata, Italy, to name a few.

In her passion for education, she has brought the art of dance to local schools including Putnam High school in Putnam, Georgia, Reed Academy Middle School in Springfield, Missouri, and Lee Elementary School in Denton, Texas through community outreach programs and residencies. Azaria has published articles in the Dance Education in Practice, Journal of Dance Education, Dance Teacher Magazine, Black Dance Magazine, and Dance Magazine.

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2024 Performing Arts Fellowship Recipients

In Music:

Beth Vanderborgh of Laramie

Beth Vanderborgh is a distinguished cellist, celebrated for her extensive and diverse career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral performer, and educator. She is currently a faculty member at the University of Wyoming, the principal cellist of the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra, and serves on the Artist-Faculty at the Eastern Music Festival. Vanderborgh is a founding member of the renowned Stanislas Sextet in Nancy, France, and tours with the Helios Trio, which debuted at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in NYC in 2022 to great acclaim.

In the past year, Vanderborgh performed Tan Dun’s Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with the Cheyenne Symphony and the University of Wyoming Symphony Orchestras. At the Smithsonian Institution, she recorded a disc of cello duets by Friedrich August Kummer, collaborating with cellist Kenneth Slowik and playing on the famed Servais Stradivarius. Her performances with the Stanislas Sextet took her to France and Wyoming, culminating in a CD of sextets by Strauss, D’Indy, and Schulhoff, recorded by Radio France and released by Forgotten Records. With the Helios Trio, she toured Wyoming, performing at the Lander Performing Arts and Dubois Chamber Music series. She taught a ten-day masterclass in cello, chamber music, and chamber orchestra at Shanghai University in China. She commissioned a cello duo by Gwyneth Walker inspired by Wyoming’s Vedauwoo and recorded its world premiere video with cellist Stephanie Flores and videographer Marlon Rissatto. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1AtzM0MEW0 Other engagements included performances with Montana Baroque, Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, two solo recitals with pianist Jiwon Han, and performing at the Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina. In May she hosted the 8th annual UW Cello Festival, which brought hundreds of cellists and cello lovers to the State of Wyoming from across the Mountain West.

David Huebner of Sheridan

Dave Huebner is a singer-songwriter, cellist and guitarist based in Sheridan, Wyoming, who fronts the Wyoming based band The Two Tracks along with his wife Julie. He grew up as a serious student of classical music in the densely populated and highly competitive world of Los Angeles. Once out of high school he quit playing cello and moved to the mountains of the Eastern Sierra of California to become a ski bum. It wasn’t until about six years later, while living snowed-in in the woods for eight months out of the year that he picked up a guitar and the magic of songwriting finally struck. One of those first songs—Lost in this Canyon—is now a staple of live shows for The Two Tracks. From there he eventually decided to get the cello back out and helped form and tour with a few different bands, spending several years as a full time traveling musician.

Fast forward to 2015, after moving to Wyoming, Huebner met Julie of The Two Tracks, joined the band on their debut album and moved to Sheridan. Since then The Two Tracks have toured the country and even internationally to Dubai, and released three more albums of original music, including 2020’s Cheers to Solitude which charted on the Top 40 Americana Radio chart, and most recently in August 2023 with It’s a Complicated Life, which Montana Public Radio listed as one of their Top Ten Albums of 2023.

Huebner wants to put this fellowship toward the task of working on new music for The Two Tracks next album, and to record a selection of the numerous B-sides, and odds and ends of dozens of songs he has sitting in his notebooks from the past 20 years to release in 2025.

In Theatre & Dance:

William Conte of Casper

Bill hails from New York City, where he directed, acted in, wrote, and produced over fifty plays before arriving in Casper in 2010. Most notable among these is his translation and staging of Dante’s “Inferno” and a series of outdoor performances of classical plays in New York City parks. He taught theatre history and literature at Casper College until 2020, where he directed or acted in two dozen productions, and is founder and artistic director of the Theatre of the Poor, which is noted for productions of classics in found spaces, free to the public. In 2019 Bill received an Honorable Mention from WAC Performing Arts Fellowship committee for his work with TotP.

Bill earned his doctoral degree in Theatre from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2010; his research focuses on the performativity of religion and ritual, and theatre historiography. He is married to Jacquelyn Navarro, and enjoys sharing his theatre work with their daughter, Julia.

Jennifer Wilkins of Afton

Jennifer Wilkins is a passionate advocate for biomechanics and movement education with 20 years of experience in helping individuals of all levels achieve their goals. As a seasoned professional, Jennifer has dedicated her career to understanding the intricacies of human movement and applying this knowledge to empower movers of all kinds, from beginners to advanced practitioners.

In addition to her expertise in biomechanics, Jennifer owned and operated a circus arts training facility for 16 years, where she successfully trained hundreds of students and dozens of instructors. Her commitment to excellence extends beyond the studio, as she has written several articles for international magazines within the aerial arts industry and currently contributes a safety column to a mining and engineering magazine.

Jennifer’s leadership roles include serving as a board member for two years and as the assistant executive director for one year with the Star Valley Arts Council. She volunteered as a cultural champion with the Wyoming Art Alliance and is also the founder and Executive Director of the Wyoming Arts Development Institute with a mission dedicated to assisting artists in their career development, providing continued education, and connecting the community with educational opportunities in the arts.

Jennifer’s diverse skill set includes program development, show production, direction, and choreography, and she has competed and performed in various disciplines, including aerial arts, piano, singing, bodybuilding, and acting. Her approach to training is rooted in education and discipline, allowing her to coach alongside some of the best athletes across multiple fields.

In addition to her work in the arts and movement, Jennifer is the owner and artist, alongside her partner Jay Banbury and their kids, in their custom art shop, Banbury Customs. Their shop is a reflection of their combined artistic talents and passion for craftsmanship.

Honorable Mentions

• Anthony Gamroth of Casper
• Sara Tipton of Bedford

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Previous Performing Arts Fellowship Recipients

Previous Recipients