Established by anonymous donors, the Open Doors Performing Arts Endowment enriches students’ lives through the performing arts. It supports performances and workshops that foster a global perspective at the University of Wyoming. 

Here are a few of the incredible artists that the Open Doors endowment has brought to campus. 

Gina Chavez is an internationally acclaimed Latinx pop artist and 13-time Austin Music Award winner whose NPR Tiny Desk concert garnered over 1.4 million views. As a cultural ambassador, she has toured internationally with the U.S. State Department, sharing her music and leading workshops in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Guatemala, Mexico, and more. She runs Niñas Arriba, a college for young women in gang-dominated El Salvador. Chavez visited UW twice in 2024, teaching master classes, giving the keynote address at the Wyoming Latina Youth Conference, and performing at the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. 

Founded in 1984, Urban Bush Women burst onto the dance scene with bold, innovative, and demanding works that brought untold and undertold stories to life, weaving contemporary dance, music, and text with the history, culture, and spiritual traditions of the African diaspora. Their international reach spans six continents through U.S. State Department cultural diplomacy initiatives.  

The company brought its 40th anniversary celebration, This is Risk, to UW in 2025. This performance looks forward and back and celebrates four decades of operating at the vanguard of movement and social activism. The performance was the featured event for the American College Dance Association High-Desert Conference that was hosted by UW’s Department of Theatre and Dance. Festival participants had the opportunity to work with dance company members in master classes and workshops. 

The performing arts serve as powerful bridges between cultures, allowing audiences to experience diverse stories, traditions, and worldviews through theater, dance, music, and other live expressions that transcend language barriers.