Fairmont State University Artist-in-Residence Kick Off Begins Oct 30 with Halloween Square Dance
Fairmont State University will kick off its 2025–26 Artist-in-Residence program with a Community Halloween Square Dance at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, at the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center. The event will be led by Annick Odom, this year’s artist-in-residence.
The Artist-in-Residence program at Fairmont State brings accomplished artists from a variety of disciplines to campus to engage with students and the community through performances, exhibitions, lectures and coursework. The program fosters creative exchange and provides students with unique opportunities to learn directly from working artists.
The square dance is free and open to the public. No experience or partner is required. Featured callers include Taylor Runner and Lou Maiuri, with music by the Kennedy Barn String Band.
This event marks the beginning of a four-part square dance series curated by Odom. Additional dances will be held throughout the winter and spring, each featuring different bands and callers. All events are free and open to the public.
In the spring semester, Odom will teach an eight-week course on crankies—hand-drawn scrolls used to tell stories through early animation. The course will be open to all Fairmont State students. On April 16, Odom will also speak as part of the Presidential Speaker Series, which is open to the public.
Odom is a Belgian American multi-instrumentalist composer known for her work in folk singing, storytelling, crankie-making and square dance calling. Her work blends Appalachian traditions with contemporary composition and narrative performance. She is a two-time recipient of the West Virginia Humanities Council’s Folklife Apprenticeship, during which she studied Appalachian fiddle music with folklorist Gerry Milnes and square dance calling with Taylor Runner. She is also a member of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild and is committed to community-centered arts practices.
“It’s deeply meaningful to be recognized as an artist here in my home state of West Virginia and to be provided opportunities to connect with the Fairmont community. This residency is a unique opportunity to share many different parts of my artistic life, including my work as a performer-composer, square dance caller, storyteller and crankie-maker,” Odom said. “It also gives me the chance to bring together communities I care about, curating square dances that celebrate both up-and-coming callers and older callers who have long been heroes of mine. I am especially excited to share the interdisciplinary art of crankie-making with students and to encourage them to connect their creative work with the rich local histories and contexts that surround us, drawing from archives and oral histories we will collect this year.”
Fairmont State’s Artist-in-Residence program has hosted a wide range of creatives over the years, including fiction writer Cary Holladay; British musician Emma Peake; stage director Jeffrey Ingman; poet Maggie Anderson; sculptor Wayne Trapp; the late jazz legend Johnnie Johnson; British actor Roger Jerome; freelance artist Patricia Musick; opera singers Maryanne Talese and Stephen Lusmann; portrait artist Elizabeth McLain; writers Jaimy Gordon and Meredith Sue Willis; pianist Nada Loutfi; landscape painter Ann Templeton; singer-songwriter Larry Groce; dulcimer player Stephen Seifert; Russian American soprano Dina Kuznetsova; animator and cartoonist Gary Leib; writer Patricia Foster; and artist Sassa Wilkes.
