Children dance across the stage in a variety of vibrant t-shirts; Samson Trinh jumps and ducks with the beat as he conducts the Upper East Side Big Band; colors splatter across the backdrop with each rise and fall of a child’s hand. All of these elements came together to create LIVE ART. Presented by the School of Performing Arts in the Richmond Community, this production featured 125 students from the LIVE ART program alongside nationally recognized musicians.

The goal of the program was to give children with special needs, along with typically developing students, the chance to perform for a live audience. Nearly half of the students in the production had Autism, Williams Syndrome, or Downs Syndrome, or they were hearing impaired.

“It was a process that all of the students could get something out of whether they were really experienced performers or brand new to the performing arts,” Ryan Ripperton, SPARC executive director, said.

When SPARC director of education, Erin Thomas-Foley, came up with the idea for LIVE ART, she yearned to find a way to provide these students with an outlet to show off the skills they learned through their SPARC performing art classes. Collaborating with statewide arts initiative, Minds Wide Open 2012 and the Stanley and Kim Markel Memorial Fund of the Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia has allowed her to create that outlet.

Teaching artists, special education teachers, Richmond Boys Choir, Dreamers Theater, Richmond Ballet’s Minds In Motion Team XXL, musicians, students, families and many more community partners supported LIVE ART.

“For the first time in a long time, many of the different segments of children and community came together,” Barry Thomas, father of director Erin Thomas-Foley, said.

Beginning in January, the memorial fund allowed students to prepare for their performance tuition-free. Students were separated into dancing, singing, sign language, painting with hands and feet, musical instrumentation and more. These students later combined with the professional musicians and dancers for the live show.

“The thing that I found the most moving was that within ten minutes of the first class starting, the students perceived no difference between them,” Ripperton said. “Any barriers that we were worried may exist with the students, they just fell off of them the moment they moved into the very first class.”

The LIVE ART mimes overlapped with the set crew throughout the show, introducing each act through quirky scenes that elicited laughter from the audience. One boy wearing a top hat, cape and white gloves, dressed as a magician, was an audience favorite.

Starting with Susan Greenbaum’s, “Walk in These Shoes,” art was created during each song. This song featured students painting on easels around Greenbaum while she sang. Each student turned and bowed after showing off their paintings to the audience at the end of her performance.

“See, this really is live art!” Greenbaum said.

The paintings marked the point at which the show’s name, LIVE ART, clicked with the audience. From this point on songs featured hand choirs, painting, poetry readings and improvisational dancing.

Spoken word students each read a line about what “art is” to them. After each taking a turn to recite their lines, they said, “The Earth without art is just blegh,” while sticking out their tongues and laughing. One of the objectives of the show was to show the importance of performance arts in the community.

Interactive visualizations, part of the Dance.Draw project at UNC Charlotte, were also an integral part of the performance. Some of the children had remotes in their hands that directly affected the backdrop as they twirled across the stage, creating lines and spirals of color across the screen.

Jason Mraz, a Grammy award-winning musician, was a surprise performer in the show. Mraz is originally from Midlothian and is a SPARC graduate.

In the second act he performed his song “Details In The Fabric” with the speaking feet dancers. As he sung and played guitar, the children walked around him squirting bottles of paint onto the canvas at his feet. When they finished, Mraz started moving around the stage and the speaking feat dancers began their dance.

After his song the “details in the fabric” were presented to the audience. As the canvas lifted up for use as a backdrop during the finale, the audience could see the bright little footprints dancing in circles around Mraz’s feet in the center.

The show’s completion was met with resounding applause and a standing ovation from a teary-eyed audience.

“It just makes you smile, just thinking about those kids being up there,” Bobbie Terrell said. Her son, Connor Terrell, has been a member of SPARC for five years and played guitar during the show.

After the success of this show, LIVE ART organizers are currently collecting feedback from parents, students and community members to decide where to take the program next. One thing is for sure, there will definitely be more programs like LIVE ART in SPARC’s future.