Dance Professor and Art Alumna Receive 2025 Arts & Science Council Fellowships
Associate Professor of Dance Tamara Williams and art alumna Carolina Quintana Ocampo ’21 are among the 2025 cohort of the Arts & Science Council’s Emerging Creator and Creative Renewal Fellowship recipients.
Emerging Creators and Creative Renewal Fellowships focus on giving artists in Mecklenburg County “an opportunity to explore new methodologies, to experience a resurgence of holistic creativity, and to broaden pathways towards artistic expression,” the Arts & Science Council (ASC) said in its award announcement. As two of the most significant local grants for individual artists, the awards are highly competitive.
Williams is one of five artists to receive a Creative Renewal Fellowship, which supports established artists who have at least 10 years of professional experience in their discipline and “are at a stage in their careers where there is a need to explore, expand, or reimagine their creative practice,” the ASC said.
Williams will use the $15,000 grant to augment her dance research and performance practice with the study of Yoruba drumming. She will travel to Africa this summer to study in Benin and Nigeria, returning in December and late May 2026 to continue her work. Throughout the school year, she will also be traveling to Atlanta to study with Yoruba traditionalists who are masters of the West African percussive rhythms and songs.
As an artist and an academic, Williams is dedicated to performing, researching, documenting, cultivating, and producing arts of the African Diaspora. She is a specialist in African Brazilian dance and in African American Ring Shout, both rooted in West African dance practices.
“I’m truly excited for this new venture, which will continue to deepen my understanding and practice of Yoruba-rooted artistic practices which have branches in Brazilian and African American cultures,” Williams said.
The Emerging Creators Fellowship, first launched in 2017, supports early-career artists “by providing vital resources that enable exploration, experimentation, and growth toward sustainable creative practice.” Quintana will use her $10,000 to explore new mediums for an upcoming short film.
Quintana was a Martin Scholar at UNC Charlotte and received her BFA in Art with a concentration in Illustration. In a recent interview with the online magazine Bold Journey, she said she “took advantage of all the resources including scholarships, honors programs, and a wide variety of art classes.” After graduation she continued her training through the Netflix Animation Foundations Program and a Women in Animation Mentorship Circle.
Quintana expanded her Honors Thesis project, an animated short called Mi Modo, for presentation last fall in the Department of Art & Art History’s 60th anniversary exhibition, Generations. In March, she screened her new animated short, Salpimienta, at the Charlotte Latino Film Festival.