Now in its third year, the Creative Exchange Fund, administered by The Medium in downtown Springdale, supports local artists by providing financial support and a space to take creative risks. KUAF is partnering with The Medium to profile some of this year's 37 multidisciplinary artists. We'll hear about their art, their process, and what it means to be a creative in northwest Arkansas right now.
Caitlyn Sullins is the founder and director of Natural State Performing Arts, a dance school in Bella Vista. She spoke with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani about a dance festival the school is holding this week, titled Space Exploration. She says the event is meant to showcase the work that Natural State Performing Arts is already doing for the dance community throughout northwest Arkansas.
Sullins: My name is Caitlyn Sullins and I'm the founder and director of Natural State Performing Arts. I was born in Little Rock, and I was raised actually in northwest Arkansas from age 6 until I left for college. So I grew up in Fayetteville and Bella Vista and started dancing here in northwest Arkansas when I was 7 years old with Miss Margaret Wallace. Miss Peggy and I just really fell in love with ballet specifically, but all types of dance and movement. And I continued to study ballet all through my childhood and young adult life. And I have a bachelor of fine arts degree in dance from Missouri State University, and I got to experience training here in Rogers, Arkansas, for the Royal Academy of Ballet that's based in London and then the American Academy of Ballet, which is based in New York City. My teacher was an affiliate for both of those schools, and it really just kind of solidified my training and my commitment to the art form.
And now that I am an adult and have spent some time away, like at college, and we lived in Chicago and I worked for corporate dancewear — like helped design pointe shoes and things like that at my previous job — I really missed getting to dance every day and be focused on the craft and having lots of opportunities to express myself through dance. So I founded Natural State Performing Arts with my husband, Devin, in January of 2024. We opened our doors and we do classes and workshops and productions that are based in classical ballet and classical theater performance. So Devin is our acting teacher, and we offer ballet and modern and jazz and tap and contemporary and choreography composition and all different kinds of classes to our community.
Nourani: Maybe tell me a little bit about how the festival conceptualized in your mind, kind of where that came from.
Sullins: I've been to some other festivals and conferences and conventions that celebrate dance and different types of movement. And I have never heard of one really taking place here in northwest Arkansas, especially one that's focused on choreography. So the Space Exploration is kind of a double entendre with exploring the space around us through movement. And then also we are bringing in some aliens, outer space, a little bit of that outer space to the moon type. One of our songs that we've selected for the project is "Mr. Spaceman." So we are going to do some fun little aliens, outer space, stars, all of that.
Nourani: Give me some more information about the festival itself. You mentioned multi genres, there's going to be seminars and choreography, and this is all kind of leading up to a public performance.
Sullins: There's still a little bit of time to sign up. If somebody — I know it's going to feel a little last minute — but if they want to sign up and join us this week, we are going to have classes every evening starting on Tuesday, April 21 and running through Sunday, April 26. And what we're going to be doing is ballet, modern, contemporary, jazz, photography, dance stage lighting, audio planning, choreography composition, all kinds of different classes and workshops. And we will actually be using the things that we talk about — like we're going to have a dancer photo shoot during the week. And we're going to put together a show with eight pieces of concert dance that are going to be presented on Saturday evening. At 7 p.m. at The Medium on April 25, the show is open to the public and we're going to present the eight pieces of choreography that we've collaborated on throughout the week.
The concert is going to be open for audience feedback. We'll have all the choreographers come up on stage and be able to answer questions and talk about their work, as well as taking down some written feedback. So if you come to the show, we want you there and we're going to give you a little bit of homework so you can fill out one of our cards and give us your thoughts on the choreography. And then on Sunday, our team is going to review that audience feedback and then film final versions of the pieces of choreography.
I actually started teaching dance and doing small pieces of concert dance choreography when I was 12 years old. I got my first job when I was 12. And I've been teaching and choreographing for more than 20 years now. And I think when I did work in the corporate dance world, I think I could have maybe seen it as a maybe, possibly someday type of dream. But now it's actually really here. And I'm just really thankful to the Creative Exchange Fund and The Medium for providing the opportunity. I have lots more ideas up top ready to go. But this one, I'm really excited that was accepted for the grant and that we have the space — literally the stage and the auditorium and everything — to actually try out one of my kind of harebrained crazy ideas. And I am very proud of myself, but there's more to come for me. This is just the start of a bigger movement, I think, of having professional and classical dance training be more inclusive and more collaborative and less of a glass ceiling.
With still 95% across the world, professional choreographers are almost always male. And generally speaking — this is not everyone, but generally speaking — the majority is older, white male choreographers or directors. So I'm very excited that it's me and I get to take a turn and then I can maybe hopefully inspire some of our students and other collaborators that they can be part of that, too.
Our website, where we have the tickets listed for Space Exploration — the show on April 25 — and we also have the passes available for dancers who want to participate, is naturalstateperformingarts.com. And we also have a Facebook and Instagram at the same name, Natural State Performing Arts. People can see the passes and all of our class schedule for our dance studio. That's located in Bella Vista, Arkansas. We have students from Arkansas and Missouri and Oklahoma that all drive to Natural State to come take dance lessons and be part of our community, which is really awesome. Just trying to provide a safe, inclusive space that's more local. There's lots of things that exist like this in larger cities. And I think it's time that we get a little piece of the pie too, here in northwest Arkansas — we get to have those kind of spaces be accessible.
Caitlyn Sullins is founder and director of Natural State Performing Arts in Bella Vista. She spoke with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani this week about their dance festival, Space Exploration. You can register for the festival or find tickets to Saturday's public performance in Springdale at naturalstateperformingarts.com.
The Creative Exchange series is produced by KUAF Public Radio in partnership with The Medium. Support for this project comes from the Tyson Family Foundation. The Medium and the Creative Exchange Fund are projects of the Creative Arkansas Community Hub and Exchange, or CACHE. For more about this project and the 2025-26 recipients, you can visit themedium.art.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
