The Office of Creative Propulsion supports JMU students, faculty, and staff in ideating and facilitating participatory arts engagement opportunities within JMU, Harrisonburg, and surrounding communities.
Please contact the Office of Creative Propulsion with any access needs.
Our Initiatives
JMU's Dance for PD® Program
Led by JMU Dance Professor Emerita and certified Dance for PD® teaching artist Kate Trammell, and assisted by School of Theatre and Dance Music Director Toby Twining and JMU Dance, Music, and Occupational Therapy students, these weekly classes are based on the Dance for PD® approach developed by the Mark Morris Dance Group. Learn more here.
Be)Holding Love & Loss: An Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities Series on Grief
Through a combination of talks and art events, this Fall 2023 series will explore how we understand our grief, what we grieve, and the ways in which grief figures into our lives. Learn more about the series and included events here.
Furious Flower Broadside Exhibit
September 1st - November 1st
Cardinal House, 500 Cardinal Dr.
An Evening of Good Grief: Poems & Songs
September 5th, 7-9PM
Pale Fire Brewing, 217 S. Liberty St.
Grief & Belief: Talks on Love and Loss with JMU Faculty
September 20th, 7-9PM
The Golden Pony, 181 N. Main St.
Crafting Local Commemorations: Honoring Día de los Muertos in the Shenandoah Valley
October 5th, 5:30-7:30PM
Madison Union Ballroom
Moving Through Grief: A Discussion on Dance in Grief and Healing
October 11th, 7-9PM
Harrisonburg Dance Cooperative, 2 N. Main St.
The Story of Grief: A Conversation with Jesse Ball
October 26th, 7-8:30PM
Location TBA
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl
November 14th-18th, 8PM
Asbury United Methodist Church, 205 S. Main St., Slaven Hall
The Gray Catbird Project
Sound Ecology: Human Noise and the Gray Catbird is an interdisciplinary project seeking to help audiences understand how human-generated soundscapes impact birdsong, including the song of the Gray Catbird. Learn more about the project here.
Stories and Songs
A continuation of a National Endowment for the Arts-funded project titled "Transitioning & Traversing: Stories and Songs of Incarceration, Equity, Justice, and Community", the OCP collaborates with JMU Social Work and Music Education students to facilitate music-making at Harrisonburg's Gemeinschaft Home. Watch videos from the 2018 performance of Gemeinschaft Home resident-created songs here.
