The Culture Works staff attended Arts Day and the Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Columbus on May 21, 2014.  Arts Day gives the arts organizations the opportunity to visit with State Senators and Representatives in the Dayton Region and talk with them about the importance of arts and culture to our area.  We had large participation from the arts groups who joined us this year.  Thank you to the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the Victoria Theatre Association, Classical 88.1/WDPR, and the Bach Society of Dayton, as well as arts supporters Alan Schaeffer, Rap Hankins, Annette Salsman, and Dave McElwee, who all joined us to meet with state officials.  Arts Day is such an important event for us all.

Culture Works was so proud to be part of the Dayton Arts community when Neal Gittleman of the Dayton Philharmonic and Sheri “Sparkle” Williams of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company were given Governor’s Awards for the Arts for 2014 at the Governor’s Luncheon.  There are only six awards given state-wide each year, and Dayton area artists won two of them for 2014!  Neal won his award for Community Development and Participation for his great work with the Philharmonic and our community, and Sheri won as Individual Artist for her amazing years of dancing with DCDC.    Dayton came out in force to support and applaud these amazing artists.