TCU Holds AIDS Benefit Dance Concert

Texas Christian University's Chi Tau Epsilon Dance Honor Society is holding a benefit concert for the AIDS Outreach Center of Tarrant County, and they've gathered an impressive roster of dance groups to perform.

The event features local dance organizations Bruce Wood Dance Project, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth, DanceTCU, Ephiphany Dance Arts and Denton's Big Rig Dance Collective.

The event is 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, at TCU's at Erma Lowe Hall Studio Theatre, 3000 S. University Drive in Fort Worth.

Here's more from the official news release:

Chi Tau Epsilon Dance Honor Society (XTE), in collaboration with the TCU School for Classical & Contemporary Dance (SCCDance), will host the annual AOC Benefit Concert in support of AIDS Outreach Center on Saturday, February 18, 2012. We hope that you will consider offering funding support for the AOC and/or an in-kind contribution toward the production of the concert. All of the proceeds of this concert will go directly to AOC and be used to raise awareness, support client services and programs, and educate our communities.

In 1993, XTE President Andy Parkhurst organized students in the College of Fine Arts at TCU to honor accompanist Lee Fincher who had recently lost his battle to HIV/AIDS. Students organized quickly and enthusiastically, and by making this a benefit concert, made an effective difference in the larger community.  This tradition continued off and on over the next 12 years. In 2005, Vanessa Watters and Suzanne Garrison, SCCDance majors and XTE officers, re-established the priority for community service as an ongoing commitment and revitalized the concert.  For the next five years, the concert showcased work by student, faculty and guest artists at TCU. Last year, an alliance between XTE and Fort Worth high school dance programs was formed to realize the benefit. Now entering its seventh consecutive year, XTE continues to bring together artists at TCU and in the greater community to support the AIDS Outreach Center of Tarrant County. This year the concert will feature works from the SCCDance as well as works by the following area dance companies: Big Rig Dance Collective, Bruce Wood Dance Project, Contemporary Dance Fort Worth, DanceTCU and Epiphany DanceArts.

AIDS Outreach Center is the only 501 © (3) non-profit organization in Fort Worth serving Tarrant County and seven rural counties that offers comprehensive and vital direct HIV client services to men, women, and children, and their families, while also providing essential prevention, education and outreach programs.  AOC also advocates for strong and sound HIV policy.

AIDS Outreach Center (AOC) community-based organization was founded in 1986 as the Fort Worth Counseling Center.

The agency was founded by the Tarrant County gay and lesbian community to help provide mental health and legal support for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. For the first two years, the agency was staffed solely by volunteers with no funding. In 1988, the agency received its first grant from the Texas Department of Health (TDH) for the provision of HIV/AIDS services, which enabled the agency to hire its first two staff members.

Due to its long-standing history of quality and comprehensive support services, AOC has become the most highly utilized non-medical referral destination for more than 2,000 persons per year living with HIV/AIDS in Tarrant County and the surrounding areas. Current services include: mental health counseling, support groups, the Sandy Lanier Nutrition Center and nutritional counseling, the Geisel-Morris Dental Clinic, youth services, minority outreach, case management, legal assistance, transportation, housing, emergency assistance, insurance continuation program, information line, community education and prevention services, including confidential and anonymous testing for HIV and Syphilis, HIV negative and HIV positive prevention programs.