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Arts Infrastructure with Ira Weiss
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Season One, Episode Four: This month’s guest is Ira Weiss. Ira began working at the Ohio Arts Council in 1974. He started as a performing arts coordinator, then presenting touring coordinator, grants office assistant director, to information technology specialist. In 1980 Ira Weiss received the Association of Ohio Dance Companies award for significant contributions to the field of dance in the state of Ohio. Ira was the second person to receive this award. The first was in 1979 to Josephine Schwartz, Founder of Dayton Ballet. OhioDance was established in 1976 in response to a request by the Ohio Arts Council that dance companies in the state organize to provide a coherent channel of communication to, and within, the dance field. Ira Weiss was the staff member of the Ohio Arts Council that helped to make this happen.
OhioDance A State of Dance is a six-part series coming out the fourth Friday of each month through November 2023.
This podcast is driven by the OhioDance mission to secure the foothold of dance in Ohio through increasing visibility, firming viability, and elevating the position of dance in Ohio.
In 2016, a five-person team set out on a mission to capture the achievements of persons and institutions who have shaped the intricate diversity of dance history and practice within the state of Ohio and weave them together in an easily accessible digital format. This we call the OhioDance Virtual Dance Collection. As of 2023 we have highlighted 33 individuals and institutions. The team has traveled over 5000 miles and interviewed 100 individuals in all five regions of Ohio. vdc.ohiodance.org
If you like what you are listening to and are not a member of OhioDance, you can go to ohiodance.org and click the membership button to join and receive the many benefits that come with your membership. You can also donate through our purple donate button.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'State of Dance' Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to a State of Dance, sponsored by Ohio Dance and hosted by independent choreographer and interdisciplinary artist Rodney Veal.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello everybody. I'm Rodney Veal. I am the host of the State of Dance podcast and president of Ohio Dance and an independent choreographer.
Ira Weiss and Ohio Arts Council
00:00:32
Speaker
And today we are speaking with Ira Weiss. Ira began working at the Ohio Arts Council in 1974.
00:00:39
Speaker
He started as a performing arts coordinator, then presenting tour coordinator, grants office assistant director to information technology specialist. So to say that Ira has been integral to the formation and develop of Ohio dance and the Ohio Arts Council cannot be overstated. So we're going to have a great conversation about all things Ohio Arts Council, Ohio dance, Ira. So Ira, welcome to the podcast. Well, thank you so much.
00:01:07
Speaker
Oh, this is great. I mean, the fact that you worked your way through the organization. So you started in 74, which means I found this out recently that the OIRs Council started in 1965. That is correct.
00:01:23
Speaker
That's correct. It was the date of my birth, year of my birth, which is kind of scary. I know it's a little frightening, but it was one of those modes I found that I'm like, oh, so it's as old as I am. So, so you're not that far that the organization wasn't that far along when you joined in. What brought you into the fold of the Ohio Arts Council? Well, let me give you a little bit of history about the Arts Council first. And that's starting in 1965. It was started by a state legislator who eventually became president of the Senate, Stanley Aronoff.
00:01:52
Speaker
And Irma Lazarus, who eventually would become chair of the Ohio Arts Council, went with Stanley in 1965 to the state of Illinois to look at the Illinois Arts Council that had already been started. Now, with startup funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, we started in 1965. Now, a little bit on my background, I have a Bachelor of Music Education
00:02:16
Speaker
and a Master of Arts in Arts Administration from Indiana University in Bloomington.
Ira's Arts Background and Influences
00:02:20
Speaker
And as far as my dancing goes, I'm a singer by background, classically trained, studied with Pablo Obira, who sang at the Metropolitan Opera.
00:02:29
Speaker
And, but all the singers at Indiana University for their physical education requirements at the time, where all the boy singers were required to take ballet so that the girls would have someone to partner with on stage. And so I took a sec, so I did Nutcracker and several other ballets. And that's my first introduction to actually performing in dance. Now I'm going to fast forward to something I did the summer I got married in 1972.
00:02:58
Speaker
I worked at what's now Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, and I was actually had a Smokey the Bear costume the whole thing.
00:03:07
Speaker
And we were called interpreters, just like you'd have an interpreter, like at Metro Parks or something like that. And I would go out and work with kids to teach them things about the arts. And one of the things we did is we did a production of the opera, Tri Manisha, by Scott Joplin. And I can pretty well bet that my wife, Kathy, and I are the only people in the state of Ohio to have ever seen that opera live.
00:03:34
Speaker
And I wish it was before Mark because it is so accessible and the music that Scott Chaplin writes is so beautiful. Well, Catherine Dunham was the choreographer. And not only did I drive her around in the golf cart at the park, but she also taught us as the interpreters the choreography, which in turn we taught to the kids from the DC area who came out to the park and we taught them the choreography and the songs.
00:04:02
Speaker
which was really a lot of fun to do. And so that was my introduction to Triminesia and what I did in my summer, before my last semester at Indiana University. And I came here. Why Ohio? Yeah, why Ohio? They offered me a job. They offered me a job, okay. Wait a minute. I applied to two places, Alaska and Ohio, where I was the finalist.
Choosing Ohio and Learning from Legends
00:04:25
Speaker
And Ohio offered me the job and John Stribich was the director at the time.
00:04:31
Speaker
And I started on January 7th, 1974. Wow. That is absolutely amazing. So you, so you came in from the music perspective and then you came in and you had this great experience with dance. And I mean, the fact that it's Kath, Katharine Dunham, I mean that, that in of itself, that's your introduction. I mean, that's for most folks, it's usually like, Oh, miss Susie school of dance. And so I like, what was that experience like, like working with your, not only your wife, but like someone as legendary as Katharine Dunham.
00:05:01
Speaker
It was just fascinating. And the fact that we got to pass it on to a yet another generation was very important for me, for her too.
00:05:12
Speaker
to see that happening 51 years ago. Wow. And so I'm really glad we got a chance to do that. But here's another tie
Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Dance Integration
00:05:20
Speaker
in. Gilbert Reed, who was our dance teacher, head of the dance department in Indiana at the Jacobs School of Music now in Bloomington, became the director of Bali Western Reserve in Youngstown. And so I would visit him, you know, as part of my Arts Council duties, and we had all these conversations about what it was like and things like that back then and what he was doing now.
00:05:40
Speaker
It was just a great time. I love it. I love it. So one of the things that's really important, really interesting is that is there Ohio Arts Council and Ohio dance are intertwined. You were there at the birthing of Ohio dance in essence. I mean, so talk about that process because I think it's really important for people to understand the state organization that supports dance is kind of highly unusual in our country. And we've got a pretty robust one. So talk about how that collaborative process happened.
00:06:10
Speaker
One of the things, maybe about a year or so after I came to the Arts Council, is I started doing these conferences, but for dance orchestras and opera companies, where we would get together. And we had them at the Neohouse and the Pickford Hays, if you remember anything about, it was in downtown Columbus, both of those hotels have since been
00:06:29
Speaker
long torn down. But we had those conferences there and people who were dancers and musicians and board members and conductors and artistic directors of all sorts would have a chance to get together in the sessions, breakout sessions. And they were a lot of funds and people got to know each other from around the state, which was very helpful. So we had people in dance getting to know each other, people from the orchestra world getting to know each other who weren't necessarily getting together
00:06:59
Speaker
outside of their own communities. Because it's not like we have these abilities now to do emails and to do texts and to do podcasts and Zoom and all that kind of stuff. That did not exist in 1970s. And so that helped a lot, just getting people together. Now, Ohio Dance, when it first started, we had the first meeting to choose a board of directors
00:07:24
Speaker
in the lower level of my bug level house in Columbus. And we all got together, we talked. And I held a hat, my little Russian bear hat above my head. And Jerry Kottelar, who was the manager of the Cleveland Valley at the time, held it above his head. And I'm surprised anybody else could reach it because he was so tall. And drew in the three, two, and one year terms per board. And that's how that board came about.
00:07:49
Speaker
the first board, and they knew that your number of years, they're serving. Half an hour later, I was at the Athletic Club for the first board member of the Organization of Ohio Orchestra. It's a little contrast there, isn't it? It's the Athletic Club is a little on the high end.
00:08:06
Speaker
My basement, believe me, was actually at the lower level, literally. Truly was, like, contrast of experiences, very much so. And so, now that the sad thing is the organization of Ohio Orchestra's, like many other state and white arts organizations, is no longer with us.
Ohio Dance's Community Strength and Diversity
00:08:23
Speaker
Ohio Dance, I'm so glad to say, is. Wow. I mean, so this is happening at the exact same moment, these formations. I love the fact that it happened in your basement. So, I mean, the fact that
00:08:34
Speaker
It just felt organic. It feels like this is a very grassroots feeling and vibe to it. How easy was it to get all of these like-minded folks in a room to talk about, hey, we need to join together to help promote dance? Was it easy or was it a struggle? I don't think it was a struggle at all. Because again, we'd gotten some of these people together at these kinds of conferences, so they soared into each other. They had organizations like AADC and Association of American Dance Companies.
00:09:05
Speaker
and they got together because they were like-minded. And you talk about people, and remember at the time it was Association of Ohio Dance Companies, which is a slightly different focus than Ohio Dance, which is focusing not only on companies, but on individual dancers.
00:09:22
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Yeah. And so it's evolved over the years to meet the needs of the community. And so you've watched this evolutionary process. Is it a surprise we've lasted this long or is it kind of a refreshing surprise that we've lasted this long? Gratification. Very gratified that it has lasted like this long. Other organizations have not done as well. Ohio Feeder Alliance has. The organization of Ohio Orchestra's has not.
00:09:50
Speaker
how Community Theater Association has. So it's great that Ohio Dance has thrived, where some of the others have faded away. And that's a statement to how cohesive the dance community is in this state. One of the reasons I've wanted to come to Ohio was because in every community,
00:10:09
Speaker
You will find orchestras, theater companies, dance companies, art museums, big and small. And that's so different than, say, the state of Illinois, where I came from, where everything is centered around Chicago, or the state of New York, where you had the city of New York and then lesser stuff in Buffalo or Syracuse or something like that. But it's very different than Ohio.
00:10:30
Speaker
all over in Springfield or Cincinnati or whatever you talk about Toledo. All those trips I took to communities all around Ohio to work with them to develop the arts in those formative years.
00:10:44
Speaker
That's absolutely amazing. So you talked about traveling around the state to offer art residencies with dance artists. And this was a grant through the National Endowment for the Arts. Yep. Can you describe that program? And who was involved and where did the residencies take place?
National Influence on Ohio's Arts Programs
00:10:59
Speaker
I mean, was this something that was something that happened all over the country or was this something very specific to Ohio? It was something that happened all over the country. You could do residencies in poetry, dance, visual arts, and probably other disciplines.
00:11:13
Speaker
for, it was called Artisan Schools at that time and eventually became Arts and Education. And the dance during program also started about the same time. And dance during program was the idea was to take dance companies and give them residencies in communities. More than one performance, it started at two and a half days to a week. The first month I was there in January of 1974,
00:11:37
Speaker
My wife and I took a trip to Indianapolis to have a Midwest meeting for dance touring program. I had no idea what the clue was. My director, Don Stravick, said, get in the car and get over to Indianapolis. And earlier before us, we're talking about time zones. And I got there an hour early because I didn't realize Indiana was on Central and I was on Eastern now.
00:12:00
Speaker
It's not only been Ohio for three weeks. I get to Indianapolis and met with them and we learned all about with the Dance Touring Program, all of it was all about. It's more than a single performance with a residency. The artists go into schools, they do public things, and they do a performance at the end of that residence. And so learned a little bit about the Dance Touring Program there. Then also learned about dance artists in schools, which is sort of also a program of the National Endowment for the Arts.
00:12:31
Speaker
where you had two weeks to four weeks of a dance movement specialist and two weeks of a dance company being in residence in that community. And that taught a lot of the things I would later do at the Arts Council. A program I started in May of 1974 called Dance Ohio Program, sponsor guidelines and directories, where I basically plagiarized a lot of what was going on with the dance touring program
00:12:59
Speaker
at the National Endowment for the Arts and made it so that Ohio companies could have the same kind of experiences in communities around the state. So that was kind of cool. That's totally cool. I mean, it's just the fact that I love the fact you said plagiarize, but it's just, but it's just you didn't you, you just took a good idea and just kind of. It was called eclectic as the technical term.
00:13:21
Speaker
eclectic. There you go. So I mean, there was a very rich, robust, and you, you, you, you highlighted that the Ohio has dance and art and just about every corner of the state. Um, so how were these pro touring programs received in these communities at the time? I mean, I know how they're received now, but at the time, what was it like? Well, the good thing is that grant wise, they were always sold out.
00:13:47
Speaker
because we had an application process and such, you know, you applied first come first served, I think it was at those days. And, you know, there was a lot of demand for it. And I can remember going to places where the Ohio Ballet went to Marietta and other communities around where we had the contemporary dance theater out of Cincinnati. They're still a part of it. We had Ohio dance, the Cincinnati Ballet, but, you know, on and on and on.
00:14:11
Speaker
And it's great to see so many of those people live. And the fact that we work with those communities to teach them how to bring a dance company in and properly sponsor them. And that was our job at the Arts Council. I love it. I love that. And I love the fact that the fact that you mentioned the companies you mentioned, they're still around.
Ira's Impact on Ohio's Dance Scene
00:14:30
Speaker
They're still thriving. They're still a part of
00:14:32
Speaker
uh the kind of thriving arts ecosystem of the state and i mean i think that that has a lot to do with your work has a lot to do with it i mean it's like well thanks you know bringing these ideas in i mean it's it's you know we love being art makers but we also sometimes need
00:14:49
Speaker
outside eyes and outside hands to kind of nudge us, guide us to go in a different direction. Was it just the fact that we had so much dance in Ohio that you just felt like this was something that we absolutely had to have and needed to do? Well, again, I like to steal.
00:15:09
Speaker
And I thought because we have so much dance in Ohio, because we had so many dance companies, minor dance companies, ballet companies, ethnic companies, that would be great to ship them around the state. Because why not? You know, we had a model and we could borrow the features from that. And basically I did.
00:15:30
Speaker
When I look at the guidelines, I could say, oh, boy, does that sound familiar. And it worked very well. Don Stravin was the director of the Ohio Arts Council until June 30th, 1974. July 1st, Jim Edgy, who had been the director of the Kentucky Arts Commission, came to Ohio to become director.
00:15:50
Speaker
Jim was a great person on touring, getting artists all over the state. He looked at my work and basically we said, how can we do this in all other arts disciplines? And we started up presenting touring programs. And so I was doing that as well as dance, music, and theater grants programs. You were wearing a lot of hats. I mean, that's just what, you know, when I introduced you, I was like, wow, you have done just about every formative thing with the Ohio Arts Council. Hey, when you're a nine-person office, people get to do a lot of things.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, you get to do a lot of things and you also get to see and see a lot of things as well. Yeah. So one of the things that is interesting. So in 1980, you received the Association of Ohio Dance Company's Award for significant contributions to the field of dance. But you were only the second person to win it. The first person was Josephine Swartz from Dayton Ballet. I mean, so the state recognized your contributions. You really did a significant amount of work to
00:16:47
Speaker
could promote dance. I mean, so what was it like? When I first drove to Ohio for my interview with John Stribie back in 1973, I'm driving on I-70 from Bloomington. And I pass a sign about the Dayton Ballet. I said, oh boy, is that cool that I'm coming here to this state maybe if I get this job. And there I was, low and behold, working with somebody who was actually a legend. How can I describe
00:17:14
Speaker
how great it was some of the people I've had a chance to work with over the years. I could remember Elaine Valois from Toledo teaching my wife how to compost. And Jeanine Kagan from the Cincinnati Ballet teaching my wife how to start in third gear, which I'm not happy about. And you know, all these relationships I've had with people as
00:17:39
Speaker
And that's really what it's about. I love it. I love it. And you're absolutely right. It's so true. And the fact that your legacy still lives on because it is about the people. That's what I enjoy about Ohio Dance, not only the services we provide, but the fact that I get to have a conversation with folks about
00:17:59
Speaker
It's just everyday things. And I'm like, oh, OK, they're human beings. They're just like you and me. But they just make extraordinary art. I remember those first meetings, and one of the people there at that first meeting where we chose that first board of AODC, Association of Ohio Dance Companies, was Michael London, who very recently won a Governor's Awards for the Arts. Oh, my goodness. And I am just thrilled to see number one him still live in there.
00:18:28
Speaker
And number two, him getting that kind of recognition. We don't give out the awards, but we do have the virtual dance collection where people can nominate organizations and individuals who've made lasting contributions and strong contributions to the fields of dance in the state of Ohio. So that's a part of our legacy as well. You can find all this incredible material about the history of dance in Ohio, and it's just super great and it's super amazing.
00:18:56
Speaker
We're going to take a little bit of a break in the podcast and when we come back, I'm going to talk about all things Ohio dance, dance, and we're going to talk about where you're at with the arts, uh, uh, considering that you're retired. So we'll take a break and we'll be right back.
00:19:17
Speaker
We want to remind you that if you like what you're listening to and are not a member of OhioDance, you can go to OhioDance.org and click the membership button to join and receive the many benefits that come with your membership.
Ohio Dance Membership and Personal Connections
00:19:29
Speaker
You can also donate through our purple donate button.
00:19:42
Speaker
So we are back with a conversation with Ira Weiss, who has many, many things to offer that tell us about the history of the Ohio Arts Council and the connections with the legacy of Ohio dance. Ira, I have a question. You talked about it briefly. You talked about your wife as a dancer. So how did that how does that figure into this? The story of your connections to dance and where did she dance and all that good stuff?
00:20:10
Speaker
Okay. We met in the early 1970s, 1970 actually. We were doing an opera at Indiana University. I was a singer. It was a mass ball by Giuseppe Verdi. And first dress rehearsal where I put everything together. I was on the stage singing. She was on the stage dancing. I started dating right after that.
00:20:34
Speaker
And we got married in January, 1972. Now her history of dance, she danced at Indiana University at the Fort Wayne Ballet and with Dance Central here in Columbus. And so that was great. She really enjoyed it. She also studied at the Royal Ballet School, which is something I would never aspire to because I'm two left feet. There's no question about that. Thank God that we met in an opera. It was so cool.
00:20:59
Speaker
You met a common ground, this kind of mixed disciplinary ground. Absolutely. It was really literally staged.
00:21:09
Speaker
Not an arranged marriage, but a staged marriage. And choreographed, I guess, too, you know? Very much so. So, through all your things that you've done and you've, like, I love the fact that you have this partner in crime to kind of go see dance and experience dance and she's, you know, with knowledge and you've had your experiences with as well. I mean, when did you retire from Ohio Arts Council? I retired, it's now 21 years ago. It's hard to believe that I'd been retired that long.
00:21:38
Speaker
And now my job is basically more as an arts tender, rather than an arts, either a participant or as an arts administrator. And as a tender, I'm doing quite a bit of, whether it's going to Ballet Med or Upper Columbus or the Columbus Symphony.
00:21:55
Speaker
doing all that kind of stuff, getting all those subscriptions. Thank God I get some of them have seen your rates, but that helps if it comes in handy. So you just, you're just kind of still in it. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, it never leaves you, does it? I mean, it's one of those things where I try to explain to people that the arts, when you're in the arts, or even as a, someone who, who, who attends.
00:22:15
Speaker
It's just something about it. I mean, it's really critical to the quality of a life lived. And so are you one of those kind of apostles for the arts and saying, why aren't you attending? Are you telling all your neighbors, where's your subscription? Actually, what's kind of interesting is how many of my neighbors do attend that I find out about.
00:22:37
Speaker
talking to one of my neighbors, oh, are you going to ballet Met? Yeah, I'm going to ballet Met. Yeah, never knew it. And it was just fascinating to see that kind of attendance. We're now having a performance of Columbus Symphony. I think it's this weekend at one of the churches in Pickrington, where I live, Pickrington, a suburb of Columbus. And so I'll be interested to see how many people there I know.
00:22:58
Speaker
I love it. What would you say to someone maybe that was thinking about not necessarily a career on the stage, but this kind of support, this kind of working within the framework of the arts of assisting and making sure people are getting funded and programs are being developed?
Careers in Arts Administration
00:23:17
Speaker
What advice would you give somebody who's planning to make that a career pathway? There are many directions. One can go as an arts administrator, whether it's an artist manager like a Columbia artist management.
00:23:28
Speaker
or working at a state arts agency or local arts agency, like the Greater Comus Arts Council, working at a symphony, working at a dance company, theater company, art museum, it goes on and on. And I founded a very fulfilling career working at the Ohio Arts Council.
00:23:44
Speaker
where my idea was I am never going to be an artistic director of the state of Ohio. I think that's totally wrong. I think it was Louis the Four Team said, the state, it is I. And as far as artistic decisions go, that belongs to the individual community and the people within that community to make that decisions for themselves, not for people in Columbus, Ohio or Washington, D.C. to dictate that upon them.
00:24:13
Speaker
So every program I did was to give them tools on how are you going to make those artistic decisions to do what you want in your own community. When I did dance touring program or this Dance Ohio, which is a spin-off, or dance artists in schools, it was never, Ira Weiss is going to recommend that dance company. No, it's what do you have to think about? What do you have to see? What do you have to hear to decide which of these artists is going to
00:24:42
Speaker
come to your community and become a citizen of your community for a short or a longer term. And skipping communities, those tools, it was integral to what I felt was my job. Maybe it was kind of unique, but that's the way I did it. One of the first things I mentioned, I think I said, I went to January 1974 to Indianapolis to start the dance touring program in Ohio.
00:25:04
Speaker
and started the Dance Ohio program, which is a spin-off, which eventually became Ohio Artists on Tour, which is a more broad-based program in all the arts, which still exists at the Ohio Arts Council, which I'm very glad to say. To get all that going, to get artists involved in the community, I'll talk a little bit about the dance artists in schools, because that's probably one of the things I
00:25:28
Speaker
most passionate about. We started, when I first came here, I went to Blueberry Elementary in Columbus, and they had a movement specialist named Mayda Withers. She was doing a residency in one of these inner city elementaries, and I said, oh boy, is this cool. Then the next year, we didn't get the grants to repeat the program. I was not very happy about that, because I saw what it had done in that particular school.
00:25:50
Speaker
The following year, we did. And so I started the dance artists in schools, and I started saying, what do I need to look for in a community for people and personalities that can pull this kind of a residency off? Remember, it's four weeks of a movement specialist, two weeks of a dance company in that community in that year. And so I started off with the city of Ashtabula and the city of Springfield. Why those first two cities? Springfield had the Springfield Arts Council with a young director, Chris Moore,
00:26:19
Speaker
His wife, Sally, was a dancer. So Chris was a singer, Sally was a dancer. The four of us had so much in common. I like what he was doing in Springfield. Ashtabula, I had visited the Ashtabula Art Center. They had a great person named Jan Hyatt. I liked what she was doing as their dance person. And so I said, okay, we're going to try it in two corners of the state.
Dance Residency Projects and Community Collaboration
00:26:41
Speaker
Needless to say, that was a lot of driving for me. Springfield, not so much. At Ashtabula,
00:26:46
Speaker
Not much further than that. So I started those two years. Springfield had the Rory Woodbury Company. Ashtabula had Bill Evans. We did Ashtabula for two years. Springfield, we did for one. Then we moved to Lima, to the Council for the Arts of Greater Lima. Now known as the Miami Area Arts Council.
00:27:08
Speaker
See how these names change over the years. Yes, they do. They evolve. Again, because they had people in those communities who could carry it off. Marty McDonald and Barb Shively in Lima. There is a book that came out that's all about this thing. And you can get it at Art Space Lima. It's called Beyond Our Imagination, Visionary Community Arts Projects in Lima, 1975 to 2003, which really describes the whole of Genesis.
00:27:38
Speaker
of how those dance residencies formed in Lima, which is also a good roadmap for dance companies that want to do residencies in communities today. And they chose Joan Kingston and Joan Brown as dance movement specialists in the Rari Whitberry Dance Company as their dance company residents. And they had them for several years. One of the things that happened in dance artists in schools, which was very unique, is you had two kinds of coordinators. You had to have a dance in schools coordinator
00:28:06
Speaker
and a community coordinator. And so we took those people along with myself and anybody else who wanted to come. We first went to New London, Connecticut and later to the, we would go to Durham, North Carolina to the American Dance Festival and we'd have workshops where people from all over the countries would meet the dance companies
00:28:26
Speaker
they were going to work with and they would also have people, the state coordinators such as myself and people from the National Endowment for the Arts, we'd get together and we'd work on workshops and take classes together and it was a great growing experience. So we had those workshops in London but the whole point is bringing the people from the communities who would work with the dancers
00:28:49
Speaker
and the dancers themselves together to bond in those summer workshops for a week was really fantastic. And I'm really glad I got the chance to do that for so many years. One of the things we did in Lima, I think for our second year, was we had the Lima Symphony Orchestra, a company, the Lowry-Woodbury Dance Company, when they did their final performance. After the four weeks of a movement special, it's in two weeks of the dance company being in residence.
00:29:14
Speaker
we would have a performance at the end. This is the first time that a symphony orchestra ever performed live with a dance company in a community. And that was great. And so the conductor of the symphony also went to New London, Connecticut with me to work all those things out. And so he was there along with the school superintendent and the principals. And the one thing I also have to point out, I think I pointed out was Sally Moore, dancer from Springfield, who worked as a dance and school coordinator.
00:29:44
Speaker
You had to have one from the community, so you had to make sure a community had that resource. And Lyma was a woman called Tekla Murphy. Tekla retired a couple of years ago after being the dance person for Lyma City Schools, all those intervening years. They created that position just for her.
00:30:02
Speaker
because of these dance artists in school programs. You know how great that makes me feel. That is pretty cool. The lasting impact of that. And we're still seeing that. And that's what I love about what you laid the groundwork for us is robust community engagement with the dance and
Legacy and Conclusion
00:30:17
Speaker
the arts. Someone always asks the question, I mean, why is Ohio so into supporting the arts? I said, this is groundwork.
00:30:26
Speaker
This wasn't just instantaneous. This took a lot of effort from not just you, but countless others to kind of lay a platform on which to stand for and spring forward. So that's got to be really satisfied for you. It is. And so, thank you. I think a year ago, maybe two, I was at the 40th anniversary celebration of Ballet Met.
00:30:45
Speaker
here in Columbus. Wow. And to think 40 years ago, I was on a steering committee where we would meet in people's houses to talk about forming a ballet, full-time ballet company here in Columbus. And 40 years later, it's still here. Still here.
00:31:01
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. Ira, you're just an amazing guy. This is such a great conversation. Thank you for sharing your stories during the journey through Ohio Arts Council and that connection to Ohio dance. I'm grateful to you as board president for helping get Ohio dance up and running because you gave me something to work with. And so now look at us. We have the virtual dance collection and we have this podcast and so much more. So a bath of Ohio dance. Thank you.
00:31:31
Speaker
And thank you for having me.
00:31:36
Speaker
A State of Dance is produced by Ohio Dance and hosted by Rodney Veal, executive producer Jane DiAngelo, editor and audio technician Jessica Cavender, musical composition by Matthew Peyton Dixon. Ohio Dance would like to thank our funders, the Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio State University Dance Preservation Fund, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, the Columbus Foundation, and the Akron Community Fund.