Social Honors Beloved Dancer, Teacher, and Administrator

By Sally Hunter Jensen, Cedar City Arts Council

Cedar City: The Cedar City Arts Council (CCAC) is continually at work connecting and supporting local artists, with each other and with our community. The Fall Arts Council Social, free to the public, is designed to introduce, celebrate and showcase members of the eclectic arts culture in our area. Everyone is invited to join CCAC on November 8, at 7 p.m. in the Thorley Recital Hall at the SUU Music Building.

Come to the social and be introduced to some of the artists that have received mini-grants from CCAC, via art displays, musical performance and reports on the use that the recipients have made of their awarded funds. The festivities will conclude with the presentation of CCAC’s Annual Community Art Award. This year the honor goes to Shauna Mendini, currently the Dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts at Southern Utah University (SUU), a recipient of SUU’s Distinguished Educator Award and Creative Publication Award.

The Fall Social presenters include mini-grant recipient the Crossroads Music Festival (CMF) with the SUU percussion ensemble performing as representatives of the summer percussion education and performance project. The Crossroads Music Festival focuses on the intersection of growing musicians and educating the public on the diverse kinds of music of the world via a two-night event in June where two professional groups perform to highlight musical diversity. CMF also focuses on educating up-and-coming musicians. Through an audition process, High School Seniors and College age students are selected to come to SUU campus and learn music. This student group, the Red Rock Percussion Group, plays as an opener to the main acts. Representing the Crossroads Music Festival, the SUU percussion ensemble will perform at the Social, highlighting students who attended the Crossroads Music Festival this past summer.

Also a CCAC mini grant recipient, tenor Steve Grabe, will sing as an introduction to the Wagner program he is producing later this year. Grabe has received praise for his beautiful tenor voice as well as his versatility in Opera, Oratorio and Musical Theatre. He made his Disney Concert Hall debut singing the tenor solos in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the CalPhil. He also was heard with the San Diego Symphony along with American Idol Finalists in “Ballroom with a Twist,” and played the Beadle in Golden State Pops Orchestra’s stage version of Sweeney Todd. Tracey Bradshaw will be his pianist at the social. He will be a soloist in this year’s Handel’s Messiah performance with the Orchestra of Southern Utah.

Mallory Sanders, Coordinator of Exhibitions at the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) and mini-grant recipient, has always had an artistic eye, but it was not until college that she decided to officially pursue her artistic passions. She received her Bachelor of Science in Art, with Museum Studies and Art History Minors from SUU in 2017. She was honored to be chosen as the College of Performing and Visual Arts Valedictorian for her graduating class. Also while at SUU, Mallory discovered a passion for museum work, and in 2016 had the privilege to help open the Southern Utah Museum of Art. She is currently the Coordinator of Exhibitions, which has allowed her to further her creativity with exhibition design. She is honored to be a part of the work SUMA does to engage the community with the arts. Her mini-grant from CCAC will enable her to mount an exhibition of her work in Groovacious, one of CCAC’s small business supporters and a music store.

Currently Sanders’ artwork mostly takes the form of oil painting and printmaking, but she is passionate about drawing, wire sculpture, jewelry making, and photography. In all her work, she is intrigued by details, patterns, distortion, illusion and abstraction. She is a very meticulous artist that is process driven, but is always looking for ways to experiment, striving to make seemingly mundane details transcend the everyday and become a work of art in people’s eyes. She also enjoys keeping things lighthearted and using humor and puns to introduce different techniques and media to viewers. 

Members of CCAC are thrilled to award Shauna Mendini with the 2023 Art Service Award and thank her for her dedication to the arts. Prior to her current position, Mendini served as Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, and earlier in her career, as Director of Dance, totaling 30 years of administrative leadership at SUU. As Dean she has overseen SUU building projects such as the Bristlecone Hall and is now supervising the new SUU Concert Hall.

Most recently, she co-directed, with Chang Sheng Mei, an original, collaborative, full-length production between SUU’s College of Performing and Visual Arts and the Hubei Opera and Dance Drama Theatre, China, titled The Dream of Helen. The production debuted July 2011 at the Qintai Grand Theatre in Wuhan, China and returned for an encore performance as part of the Hubei International Arts Festival in October 2012.

She was a dancer with the American Folk Ballet for nearly 28 years with highlight performances at the White Nights Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia and the Cultural Olympiad at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Mendini has served twice on the Steering Committee for institutional accreditation by Northwest Commission on College and Universities. She also serves the National Association of Schools of Dance as both a site-evaluator and consultant.

Please join with CCAC and artists in the community to celebrate and learn about the arts culture in Iron County. Pork Belly’s, a favorite local Main Street restaurant is creating the refreshments, so all at the Fall Social will have time to visit, and further immerse themselves in the arts of southern Utah.

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Who: Cedar City Arts Council 

What: Fall Social

When:  Wednesday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m.

Where: Thorley Recital Hall in the Music Building at Southern Utah University 

Why: Celebrate our local arts community