This spring, the Center for Health & Wellbeing invites you to enjoy a very special performance. Central Florida Community Arts’ UpBeat! provides an artistic platform for youth, teen, and adult exceptional learners and neurodivergent performers.

The UpBeat! Troupe produces multiple performances each year, including both short films and musicals, featuring the unique talents and abilities of a cast of performers with various exceptionalities and diagnoses. CFCArts is proud to holistically support its performers and showcase their abilities, so the community at large can witness their incredible talent and potential.

Join us at CHWB for a live performance from the Upbeat! Performers and learn more about their artistic process.

One of the things that makes UpBeat! unique is the use of an interprofessional team of board-certified music therapists, arts in health practitioners, and teaching artists who collaborate to develop programs based on the individual needs of the performers.

This is a performance you will not forget. Audience members of all ages are invited to enjoy this performance. Light refreshments from Nourish Coffee Bar + Kitchen will be provided.

This program is presented by Center Florida Community Arts and is hosted by the Winter Park Health Foundation.

About the Presenting Organization:   

One of the key missions of Central Florida Community Arts has been to make high-quality arts programming accessible to everyone in Central Florida, regardless of age, ability, or available resources. Through our partnership with the Down Syndrome Association of Central Florida, we recognized a critical need in our community. While performing arts programs for individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities existed, many offerings concluded once the participant reached the age of twenty-one.

Recognizing the importance of providing these programs CFCArts created the UpBeat! Theater Troupe in 2018, providing performance opportunities to our local teen and adult exceptional learners. Our purpose was to provide an inclusive space for all members of our community with varying abilities to build creative skills such as acting, singing, and dance in addition to supporting life skills including verbal and non-verbal communication, self-expression, emotional regulation, and group cohesion. In 2020 the program developed a virtual short film option in response to COVID-19, which has continued to serve folks outside of our geographic region including participation from four other states. And in 2021, we created a youth-based program serving ages 7-13 upon requests from parents in our local community.

UpBeat! has received many accolades including winning the 2020 International Hamilton Arts & Innovation Award and a prestigious grant in 2021 from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additionally, UpBeat! has been featured in 2021-2023 at the Family Cafe, Florida’s largest disabilities summit, in addition to being shared as a program model at the National Organization for Arts & Health Conference (2021), Berklee College of Music’s ABLE Assembly (2022), and at the MedPACt’s Global Health Conference hosted by the University of Central Florida (2023).