Idris Goodwin
Executive Director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College 2021 United States Artist Fellow
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Cultivating a multi-faceted professional life in the arts, spanning production to publication across academic, commercial, and civic spaces. I have never had any other professional aspiration in my life other than the arts.
What do you believe CC does best?
Commits itself to being an antiracist institution.
Which CC course would you most like to enroll in?
My wife, Felicia Rose Chavez, a Bronfman Creativity & Innovation Scholar-in-Residence, is teaching a course called Inspiration Lab in Block 8. Who wouldn’t want to spend 3 ½ weeks in “a safe space to engage curiosity, stamina, and risk?”
If you could hang out in one spot on campus, where would it be?
The Fine Arts Center, of course!
Which person, living or dead, do you most admire?
My parents.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Wu-Tang Clan and my parents.
Where do you most want to visit?
Wherever they’re producing my plays! Pre-pandemic, I was regularly traveling to work on and see productions of my plays in various cities. Over those years, I had amassed a sort of creative gaggle of professional friendships. I miss my people, and I miss the learning that occurs as a playwright when you watch an audience react in real time.
What memory about CC really sticks in your head?
Last summer we launched an initiative at FAC called City As A Venue. We took the art outside, into communities, and the theatre team built an outdoor stage on the corner of Dale and Cascade. To be able to regather, masked and outdoors with our community was a tremendous gift.
What is your motto?
Black Lives Matter.
What is your greatest fear?
Nuclear war.
If you didn’t work in your current profession, what other job would you most like to have?
DJ or the first Black Olympic curling champion.
What is one non-dominant and/or non-visible identity you would like to share about yourself?
I am a middle child.
On what occasion do you do a “happy dance?”
I kind of always be dancing, even when I’m sad … especially when I’m sad.
What is a talent you have that very few know about?
In 1989, I was voted most improved player at the Isaiah Thomas Basketball Camp, which means I got gradually less awful over the week.
How do you pronounce your name?
