Ohio Archives - Arts Midwest https://artsmidwest.org/locations/ohio/ Mon, 25 Aug 2025 21:50:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://artsmidwest.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/cropped-AM–Favicon_Favicon-512x512-1-32x32.png Ohio Archives - Arts Midwest https://artsmidwest.org/locations/ohio/ 32 32 Catch an Outdoor Movie in the Last Month of Midwest Summer  https://artsmidwest.org/stories/outdoor-movie-drive-in-theatre-midwest/ Wed, 20 Aug 2025 17:14:46 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=12532 From drive-ins to park flicks, here’s a list of where to break out the popcorn (and out of doors) near you.

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]]> Outdoor movie theaters may have peaked in the U.S. in the late 1950s, but the Midwest is keeping the tradition of hot dog concessions and FM radio tuning alive. 

As summer winds down, here are some spots to enjoy open-air cinema, from drive-ins to park flicks, free to paid, and for young and old. 

South Dakota

South Dakota’s oldest drive-in theater opened in 1946. Many notable films like Armageddon were also filmed in South Dakota (maybe you’ll catch one of them at a screening!) 

An overhead view of people sitting outdoors for a movie. There's a city skyline with tall buildings in the background.
The Nightlight 21+ Outdoor Movie Series in Columbus, Ohio.

Indiana

With over a dozen drive-in theaters across the state, Indiana loves its movies. You can catch them while floating in a pool or on the plaza across the state. Others include: 

Ohio

Ohio might take the prize for the most outdoor movie options (we counted over 30!) DriveInMovie.com says Ohio hosted one of the first 10 drive-ins in the country and once had nearly 190 of them. It boasts the third-most drive-ins in the country, behind New York and Pennsylvania. 

Four people siting on top of a car near a field and smiling.
Photo Credit: Drive N’ Theatre Facebook
Drive N’ Theatre in Newton, IL, also called the Fairview Drive-in Theatre, opened in a rural cornfield in 1953 where it remains today.

Illinois

Illinois has half a dozen drive-in theaters across the state, some with additional events like corn mazes. But movies aren’t limited to car owners, with plenty of options across parks and even on rooftops. 

Michigan

We’re nicknaming this state Movie Michigan: From its handful of drive-ins and park showings, the state has your entertainment needs covered. 

North Dakota

Parks and movies (and farms, apparently!) have never paired better. Check out these spots for some North Dakota options. 

Wisconsin

There are several drive-in theaters in Wisconsin and one fly-in (part of an Oshkosh aviation event), plus outdoor movies across Milwaukee and the state. 

A person holding a hot dog in front of a large outdoor movie screen.
Photo Credit: Mia McGill
Outdoor cinema is about the movies, yes—but it’s also about the food. Many drive-in theaters offer concessions with classic popcorn, drinks, and other bites.

Iowa

Iowa is home to four drive-in movie theaters and plenty of options to bring out the folding chair and snack of choice. The Blue Grass Drive-In opened less than a decade ago and is still expanding (it has four projectors!) while others have been open for 75 years. 

 

Minnesota

Minnesota is full of free outdoor movies (our three favorite things!) and drive-in theaters across just about the whole state. And Minneapolis is home to the We Outside Film Fest in July. 

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]]> Wash & Mosh: An Unlikely Home for All-Ages DIY Music https://artsmidwest.org/stories/wash-mosh-an-unlikely-home-for-all-ages-diy-music/ Mon, 23 Jun 2025 16:26:23 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=11503 The last-standing storefront of a once-expansive laundromat-bar chain in central Ohio has welcomed hardcore music lovers for the last decade.

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]]> The ritual of bar hopping in Columbus, Ohio’s Old North neighborhood, a common weekend excursion for the nearby college-aged locals, wouldn’t be complete without a stop at Dirty Dungarees. The laundromat-bar hybrid serves as both a relic of central Ohio’s lost laundromat pub trade and the unlikely nucleus of the city’s hardcore music scene.

Once part of a chain scattered across the central Ohio region, the North High Street location is now the sole survivor. Here, locals spin their delicates while pounding PBRs and watching sweaty band members scream at moshing teenagers. 

It is a DIY melting pot of the city’s misfits and avant-garde.

People sitting at booths with marked up wooden tables and benches in a dimly lit room. Others are standing looking in one direction. In the background, through glass windows, is a laundromat with people standing around or sitting on laundry machines.
Photo Credit: Taylor Dorrell / Arts Midwest
The bar section of Dirty Dungarees is close enough to the music to watch the show and far enough away to avoid stray punches from the mosh pit.

One recent Friday, I walked past the washers, dryers, and modest bar during a death metal set as a long-haired teen grabbed the mic. “This song is about when your dick looks weird,” he announced. As the double bass kicked in, the young crowd, cramped on the tile floor, formed a small circle pit as bystanders held out their arms to avoid being punched. 

Dirty Dungarees was never designed to be a hardcore venue. Opening in 1978, it was not until Drew Sherrick bought the business in 2015 that he started hosting shows there for his friends’ bands. 

“I don’t want to be a venue, but it’s like a fun little extra thing to do because I’m friends with a lot of bands,” Sherrick told Columbus Monthly in 2017. Nonetheless, bands kept booking gigs there while other venues closed across the city. With its low, often optional, ticket prices, grungy aesthetic, and proximity to Ohio State University, Dirty Dungarees has cemented itself as the go-to venue for DIY shows. 

A person with long, curly light brown hair holding a bass guitar. They are wearing a black tshirt, dark pants, and a black cap with red lettering. In the background there are dryers at a laundromat.
Photo Credit: Taylor Dorrell / Arts Midwest
The bassist from the local band Anatomize prepares his bass in front of the drying machines. The singer from the band told me, “If you don’t want to pay to get into Ace of Cups [a nearby venue with steeper ticket prices], this is the spot.”

“I feel like Dirty Dungarees is the heart of [the hardcore scene],” said Caroline Smyth, an occasional attendee at the venue, although she observed that the crowds have changed in age. “Everybody there was like, 19,” Smythe, now 27, reflected on the last time she attended a DJ set there, “and so I left immediately.” 

She pointed to viral TikToks that showcase the venue as a quirky spot for all ages. It’s one of the few venues in Columbus where it’s common to find all-age shows. 

Even with its full schedule, Dirty Dungarees, like other cultural microcosms in the city, has faced existential threats. When the building was sold in 2023, locals feared it would be bulldozed to make way for luxury apartments, a fate shared by similar landmarks in central Ohio like Colin’s Coffee. Although it survived, controversy has followed: regulars took to Reddit to accuse the venue under new ownership of losing some of its more progressive charm. 

Two people sitting on laundromat washing machines while a third person stands in front of them.
Photo Credit: Taylor Dorrell / Arts Midwest
Friends fight on top of the washer machines while the next band sets up.
People standing around while some in the middle of the room are dancing or moshing. There's a band in the background playing instruments and a person singing into a microphone.
Photo Credit: Taylor Dorrell / Arts Midwest
The Dirty Dungarees crowd moshes to death metal band Adversary Enfleshed, June 6, 2025.
People standing around outside in a parking lot.
Photo Credit: Taylor Dorrell / Arts Midwest
Between sets, the back lot of Dirty Dungarees become a social mixer and a runway.

Despite this, the space lives on as the center of the Columbus underground. Dirty Dungarees bartender of two years Sterling Demons (pronounced Deh-muns) told me: “You have your assholes, that exists in life, that happens, but for the most part, everybody’s been very loving since day one I’ve worked here.” 

As the neighborhood faces an uncertain future with a quickly expanding college campus to the south and a pricey neighborhood to the north, venues like Dirty Dungarees have become even more vital in the struggle for the soul of the city. “We can all come together and have a good time,” said Demons. “That’s what it’s about.”

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]]> Celebrate Make Music Day, the Midwestern Way https://artsmidwest.org/stories/celebrate-make-music-day-the-midwestern-way/ Fri, 20 Jun 2025 15:45:25 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=11422 On Saturday, June 21, more than 35 cities and towns across the Midwest are taking part in a global celebration of music-making, and you can join in!

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]]> Cities and towns in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin are hosting hundreds of free musical events on Saturday, June 21 as part of Make Music Day.

It’s a global, grassroots celebration of the everyday joy of making music—any music!

To mark the occasion, we’ve rounded up six stories that celebrate the Midwest’s musical makers and rich musical histories. Think of it as a little nudge to make some music of your own this weekend.

Check out Make Music Day for event listings in your city.

A black and white photo of a band playing instruments and singing into microphones on stage in front of an audience. The band is stylishly dressed in bellbottom pants and some of the members have natural Afro hairstyles. In the background, there are letters that read "Midnight Special"
Photo Credit: NBC
Ohio Players appear on The Midnight Special, a late-night variety series, in 1975.

1. How Ohio Funk Changed the World of Music

The Great Migration, which saw millions of Black Americans move north during the early to mid-20th century, led to a flowering of musical movements across the Midwest. It led to Chicago blues (think Muddy Waters) and the Minneapolis Sound (think Prince).

In Ohio, there was funk: insistently rhythmic, flamboyantly fun, and forward-looking in its use of audio effects. Artists like Ohio Players, Zapp, Lakeside, Faze-O, Sun, and Slave came out of the Dayton area and hit airwaves across the country in the 1970s and ’80s.

Read the full story here.

A man in a blue shirt and baseball shirt sings and plays a traditional Native American handheld percussion instrument.
Photo Credit: Dennis J. Neumann
Kendall Little Owl, citizen of Standing Rock/MHA, Singer on the Densmore/Lakota Repatriation Project.

2. Over 100 Years in the Making: The Lakota Song Repatriation Project

In many Indigenous cultures, ceremonies and traditions are paired with music. You cannot have one without the other. The beat of the drum represents the human heartbeat. The song is the prayer. The language is the foundation of those prayers.

But what happens when the language—and with it, the songs—is disappearing?

A Lakota language revitalization project in Bismarck is working to keep these important vocal traditions alive.

Read the full story here.

Four musicians play and sit on a stage.
Photo Credit: Woolsock Facebook
Musicians keep the old-time tunes flowing at a previous Woolsock event.

3. Bare Feet and Banjos Meet at Woolsock, a Winter Festival

Woolsock is an annual celebration of Midwest winter—and the dancing, old-time music-making, and community building that can (and does) still happen in the gray hues of early January.

Participants play and dance to old-time music, whch has roots that span across Africa and Europe. It often features the fiddle, banjo, harmonica, upright bass, and maybe a harmonica or mandolin.

North American old-time music comes with its own unique culture of accompanied dance like square dancing and clogging. Songs carry stories and traditions, and get you moving.

Read the full story here.

Two youth with dark hair wearing pink shirts sit in black folding chairs, the child on the left playing a black and white mini acoustic guitar, and the youth on the right is playing a black and white electric guitar. Both are peering down at their instruments as they learn the chords.
Photo Credit: Rock The Rez
Youth attending Rock The Rez camp on the Rosebud Reservation in 2024, participate in Instrument Instruction where they are learning basic chords of the guitar.

4. Rock The Rez Brings Power Chords to Indigenous Kids in South Dakota

This rock camp aims to empower Indigenous girls, two-spirited, transgender, and gender diverse youth in a safe space where they can raise their voices—and crank the amps.

The program also ensures that campers connect with musical role models within their own communities.

“We try to invite one local Indigenous band per day of camp for a lunchtime performer,” explained Matson. “The campers are always really excited to meet them, and then you say, ‘This person lives here, lives in this place where you live.’”

Read the full story here.

A person with a goatee wearing a black beanie and black hoodie looks intently down at something out of frame. There are headphones around their neck and there are colorful pink and yellow lights and a large sign hanging on the brick wall behind them that reads "You Will Do Better in Toledo."
Photo Credit: Frank Weidman
Todd Perrine DJs at Wesley’s Bar and Grill in downtown Toledo, Ohio.

5. Meet Todd Perrine, the DJ Helping to Sustain Toledo Nightlife

Step into Wesley’s Bar and Grill in downtown Toledo on a Friday night and you’ll find it packed with people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s moving to a soundtrack unlike anything else playing at surrounding establishments.

Through the crowd, which reaches between 200 and 300 people most weeks, you’ll find Todd Perrine—AKA DJ Sandman—the proverbial man behind the curtain pulling the strings, crafting in real-time the musical mood that carries the night forward.

Read the full story here.

Two musicians perform and sing on a dark stage.
Photo Credit: Kat and the Hurricane Facebook
Kat and the Hurricane is a genre- and gender-bending indie-pop/synth-rock trio from Madison, Wisconsin.

6. Midwest Made: New Local Music to Add to Your Playlist

If you had an embarrassingly meager number of Midwestern artists on your year-in-review playlist, this one’s for you. We scoured the internet (and your hot tips) for the best new Midwest-made music to listen to in 2025.

Here’s a sampling of artists from the Dakotas to Ohio.

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]]> Six Midwest Cities Among the ‘Most Arts-Vibrant’ in the US https://artsmidwest.org/stories/six-midwest-cities-among-the-most-arts-vibrant-in-the-us/ Wed, 18 Jun 2025 19:39:00 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=11415 The numbers are in: six Midwestern cities just made the list of the country’s most culturally dynamic communities.

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]]> We’ve always known the Midwest is brimming with creativity, and now there’s fresh data to back it up.

A new national study by SMU DataArts named six Midwestern communities among the Top 40 Most Arts-Vibrant Communities of 2024, recognizing places where the arts are thriving thanks to strong local investment, engaged audiences, and a high concentration of creative activity.

These rankings aren’t just about size or star power. SMU DataArts evaluates communities using 13 indicators of arts vibrancy, including supply, demand, and public funding, adjusted for population and cost of living.

Here’s how the Midwest stacked up:

RankingCommunity SizeCommunity, As Listed
5Large Communities Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
5Medium CommunitiesKalamazoo-Portage, MI
10Medium CommunitiesAnn Arbor, MI
11Large Communities Chicago-Naperville-Evanston, IL
14Large Communities Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI
19Large Communities Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN

We’re proud to see so many Midwestern communities recognized, and we’ve been lucky to tell stories from many of these vibrant places. Dive into a few of our favorites!

Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (Ranked 5th in Large Communities)

Chicago, IL (Ranked 11 in Large Communities)

Milwaukee, WI (Ranked 14 in Large Cities)

Ann Arbor, MI (Ranked 10 in Medium Cities)

You can check out the full Art Vibrancy 2024 report on the SMU DataArts website.

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]]> Reimagining an Iconic American Ballet with Dancers of All Abilities https://artsmidwest.org/stories/rodeo-reimagined-dancing-wheels-cleveland-ohio/ Thu, 05 Jun 2025 15:05:35 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=11175 The historic ballet Rodeo gets a bold new retelling from Cleveland's Dancing Wheels, a physically integrated dance company reimagining inclusive artistry.

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]]> In 1942, Agnes de Mille—one of America’s most influential choreographers—premiered Rodeo (pronounced row-DAY-oh). It’s a ballet that explores love, identity, and the social norms of the 19th century American Southwest.

Rodeo plays a pivotal part in ballet history. It helped define “American ballet,” setting it apart from predominant Russian influences of the time. And de Mille’s choreography introduced what she called “storytelling dance,” which transformed everyday gestures like cowboys riding horses or ropers throwing lassos into dance.

Now 80+ years on, Rodeo is being reimagined by Dancing Wheels, the nation’s first physically integrated dance company. Founded in 1980 and based in Cleveland, Ohio, the international touring group consists of 10 full-time professional dancers, with and without disabilities, from diverse dance backgrounds.

Dancers performing on stage with a moody lighting. Each dancer is in different pose with one lower to the ground and two in wheelchairs.
Photo Credit: Mark Horning / Dancing Wheels
Mary Verdi-Fletcher (pictured second from the left), Dancing Wheels’ president and founding artistic director, says that she’s inspired by Agnes de Mille and is drawn to westerns with strong female leads. “In the field of dance, people with disabilities weren’t as accepted quite a while ago, but it’s becoming more and more prevalent that everyone’s included. But when I started, it just wasn’t the case. So I had to be strong, motivated, and determined to be able to bring us to where we are today,” she said. Pictured: Dancing Wheels dancers performing in It Only Happens Once… Yesterday and Tomorrow (2024) choreographed by Tiffany Mills.

Mary Verdi-Fletcher, Dancing Wheels’ president and founding artistic director, says that she’s loved Rodeo ever since she first saw it staged by Cleveland Ballet in the ’80s. The vibrant movement and storyline, and de Mille’s approach to dance all resonated with her.  

“I really wanted to do Rodeo for years, but it wasn’t possible [for Dancing Wheels] to do the actual movement … the choreography at the time. So, I thought, “Why don’t we reimagine it, modernize it, put it in today’s mindset where inclusion is so important in dance,” she elaborates. 

Verdi-Fletcher says Dancing Wheel’s version of Rodeo represents a major milestone: It’s the first time a major ballet “master work” has been recreated to be physically integrated. “We’re pretty noted for taking on bigger projects,” she shares. 

A choreographer, standing with one arm raised in a curved shape, describes a turning arm movement for the dancers to try.
Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels
New York-based choreographer Amy Hall Garner (center back) spent time getting to know the dancers and their expertise as they worked through choreographing Rodeo Reimagined at Dancing Wheels in Cleveland, Ohio.

A Collaborative Transformation

Rodeo Reimagined incorporates different genres of dance, all to meet the expertise and experience of sit-down dancers in wheelchairs and stand-up dancers. It’s also being reenvisioned in other ways: a reworked score, a slightly different storyline, new costumes, and fewer cast members than the original.

To pull it off, Dancing Wheels collaborated with Cleveland Jazz Orchestra’s Paul Ferguson for the score and leading New York-based choreographer and director Amy Hall Garner.

“This has been a different process for me because we are telling a story. So, I have to make sure that stays in the forefront of all the movement,” says Garner, whose recent works lean non-narrative or abstract. “It’s really opening my creative voice in a different way and making sure that everything is clear and comfortable, and cohesive and precise.”

 

Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels
Dancing Wheels has 10 full-time professional dancers, with and without disabilities, from diverse dance backgrounds. They perform and tour national and internationally throughout the year. The vibrancy of the movement, the storyline, and the score of de Mille’s Rodero resonated with Garner and Verdi-Fletcher (left).
Three dancers wearing performance clothes in muted tones are in a line formation of decreasing height order from back to front. Each dancer is facing right and reaching their right arm out to make a thumbs-up gesture.
Photo Credit: Al Fuchs / Dancing Wheels
Dancing Wheels has close to 100 pieces in their repertory; some of them choreographed and collaboratively produced by leading figures in the field. Pictured: Dancing Wheels Company dancers Meredith Aleigha Wells, Celina Naima Speck, and Matthew Robinson performing Od:yssey (2019) choreographed by Marc Brew.
Facing each other, one dancer lifts another, holding a leg extended and the other bent. The choreographer and four dancers look on.
Photo Credit: Sara Lawrence-Sucato / Dancing Wheels
Members of the Dancing Wheels Company are working with Amy Hall Garner in a choreographic residency.

And how long did they have to create Rodeo Reimagined? Just two weeks and three days of intensive in-person choreography with Garner, plus a handful of rehearsals!

She says her time with Dancing Wheels has been a gift “because you get so used to working in the vocabulary that you normally work in … It really is cool for me to figure out new ways of moving and consideration.”

This interpretation of the historic American ballet will premiere on June 14 at Dancing Wheels’ annual benefit gala.

Dancing Wheels’ production of Rodeo Reimagined is supported in part by Arts Midwest’s GIG Fund. The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists.

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]]> When a Community Shares Its Stories with a Photographer https://artsmidwest.org/stories/when-a-community-shares-its-stories-with-a-photographer/ Wed, 28 May 2025 17:15:43 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=10897 Photographer Asa Featherstone, IV reflects on his instant film photo series—started as a way to meet people during an artist residency—and how it became a celebration of everyday stories.

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]]> Champaign-Urbana is a beautiful town that often flies under the radar unless you’re connected to the University of Illinois. As an artist based in Cincinnati, Ohio, I knew very little about it. That changed when I became an artist-in-residence at the local McKinley Foundation in January 2025.

Photo Credit: Asa Featherstone, IV
When possible, I followed community members across their routines—walking, talking, listening. I also visited schools and local organizations, leading workshops that provided storytelling tools residents could carry forward. (Pictured here is the Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church. Church is a huge part of the story in Champaign-Urbana. Several church buildings surround the streets in the town, and this was one of the largest in the area.)

The residency was a month-long, open-ended practice designed to give artists time and space to explore the town and build new work for an exhibition.

I wanted to be intentional—making work that didn’t feel voyeuristic, but created for and with the community in mind. I saw space to highlight voices of Black and brown residents whose lives shape this place in quiet, vital ways.

As a photographer drawn to overlooked stories, I created Between Us, a photo-based project made up of instant film portraits and recorded interviews. Rather than chasing big moments, I was drawn to the everyday: neighbors chatting, artists working, people carving out space for one another. Instant film felt like the right format—warm, imperfect, and deeply human. I wanted it to feel real.

Because this wasn’t a community I was familiar with, building trust was important. Before arriving, I spent weeks calling residents, learning about their ties to the town. Once I got there, I spent time interviewing 15 residents from different walks of life.

Two conversations, in particular, stayed with me.

Huey Metropolis

Huey Metropolis is a multimedia artist originally from Chicago, Illinois, who draws heavily from basketball and street culture in his work. His artist name, “Metropolis,” is a nod to both comic books and love of music.

A diptych of two scanned polaroid photos. One is of a person with dark skin tone and the other is of books and magazines on a table.
Photo Credit: Asa Featherstone, IV
“Finding the name was funny: I was sketching one day some years ago and listening to a lot of Janelle Monáe’s Metropolis album. I also loved how that was the same city where Superman was from, so the name came from a combination of the musicians and the people I looked up to,” said Huey Metropolis.
Photo Credit: Asa Featherstone, IV
Huey point of view felt fresh and essential to include in the series—not just his art, but how his environment shapes his creative expression. His voice felt unexpected in the best way.

We talked about his early relationship with art, what he hopes to accomplish, and how he ended up in Champaign-Urbana. He also spoke candidly about how his perception of the town has evolved over time.

“I’m not going to lie, this place felt kind of boring to me when I first moved here. It was one of the first times (coming from Chicago) that I really felt like I was a minority. My dad is an alum from this school, so I wanted to give it a chance,” he said.

“Over time, it grew on me. I learned that Champaign-Urbana is like a time capsule.” The artist explained: “The music, the styles—it doesn’t feel like 2025. Being a college town, it doesn’t feel real in a way. It isn’t as fast-paced as a larger city and somewhat removed from reality…

In all honesty, that’s changed me for the better. Being in the city, I was always moving on to the next thing, trying to progress as an artist and getting ahead of myself, but being here has forced me to slow down and enjoy each moment.”

Shannon McFarland

Later that week, I walked through McFarland Field with Shannon McFarland, a local leader focused on youth empowerment through sports, media, and education. The newly renovated park is named after her family, honoring their long-standing contributions to the town.

Photo Credit: Asa Featherstone, IV
Shannon McFarland’s father helped start one of the first little league baseball teams and played a major role at the local television station. Her mother founded an organization dedicated to empowering young women. “This is a slow life, but I can build here,” she told me. “This park is living proof of that. When we started out here, it was unkept and our team was out here picking up broken glass every Saturday morning, but over time it’s developed into something the town can be proud of.”
Photo Credit: Asa Featherstone, IV
Her words about legacy stuck with me: “Our family has done a lot for this town, and I don’t take that for granted. Even if I don’t know someone, there’s a good chance they know my family because of the work we’ve done collectively. That’s given us more leverage to make an even greater impact.”

Shannon’s perspective stood out to me because her work is independent of the university, yet she’s actively shaping the town’s future through her focus on youth.

Her vision for the town is grounded in equity and growth. She runs youth programs that combine recreational sports with STEM and tech workshops in collaboration with local libraries and community centers.

“There’s still a ton of inequality… but there’s time. I just want there to be space—for change, even if not everyone understands it,” she said.

These stories—along with many others from the residency—culminated in a final exhibition wall: a collage of photographs and excerpts from interviews. The resulting portrait of Champaign-Urbana honored its nuance, inviting residents, both inside and outside the university bubble, to see their home through one another’s eyes.

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]]> Midwest-Based Ukrainian Chorus Receives National Heritage Award https://artsmidwest.org/stories/midwest-ukrainian-bandurist-chorus-national-heritage-award/ Thu, 17 Apr 2025 15:36:57 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=10441 With roots in pre-World War II Ukraine, the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North American—accompanied by a distinct stringed folk instrument—has been sharing songs about the country’s history and traditions for over a century.

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]]> The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America—an ensemble with members in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania—is one of the recipients of the 2025 NEA National Heritage Fellowships.  

The award is considered the highest honor in folk and traditional arts in the country. It is given to those with “artistic excellence, lifetime achievement, and contributions to our nation’s traditional arts heritage,” according to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Ambassadors for Ukrainian culture, music, and the bandura (a many-stringed lute-harp folk instrument), the men’s choir—known as UBC—is the only collective in the cohort this year alongside seven other individual folk and traditional arts practitioners.

“As stewards of cultural memory, they bring us ‘home’ with dances and songs passed down from one generation to the next. They adorn everyday expressive life with artistry in manual arts, costume, and regalia that animate traditions within communities across America,” says Leia Maahs, NEA Folk & Traditional Arts Director.

Dozens of musicians and singers wearing traditional Ukrainian clothing pose on a stage.
Photo Credit: Andrew Zwarych
The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North America.

The UBC’s 50 or so members, of all ages between 16 through 70, are based in the Great Lakes region but travel the world to perform. Compiled of both singers and bandura players, the group sings in Ukrainian and wears traditional clothing.

The stringed folk instrument was traditionally played by a solitary traveling musician—known as kobzar— who shared songs about Ukrainian history and issues of the times. These lone musicians were often seen as a threat to oppressive regimes.

In 1918, bandurist Vasyl Yemets united multiple individual performers to start the Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The press release stated, “During political shifts in the Soviet regime in the late 1920s, bandura music was banned because of its religious, historical, and Ukrainian patriotic repertoire.”

Displaced by war and fear of persecution, UBC musicians and families were sponsored as one artistic unit to emigrate to the United States in late 1940s, from a refugee camp in Germany. Most of the 17 families settled in Hamtramck, Michigan, where they lived and worked alongside existing Polish and Ukrainian immigrant communities.

People play music and sing on a stage and a conductor stands to the right.
Photo Credit: Stefan Iwaskewycz
The Ukrainian Bandurist Chorus of North American performing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 2024.

Conductor Oleh Mahlay has been the group’s artistic director since 1996. Its recording repertoire includes over 40 albums, and in 2022 the group also received the Michigan Traditional Arts Program’s heritage award.

Other heritage fellows, announced April 17, include: Arizona-based Mexican folk costume maker and dancer Carmen Baron; New Yorker and Haitian dancer, drummer, and artist Peniel Guerrier; California-based Bon Odori artist Adrienne Reiko Iwanaga; bit and spur maker and silversmith Ernie Marsh from Wyoming; Texas-based Creole musician Edward Poullard; and traditional Lakota artist and educator Steven Tamayo (Sicangu Lakota) in Nebraska.

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]]> Meet Aimee Lee, an Artist-Educator Expanding the Legacy of Korean Papermaking https://artsmidwest.org/stories/meet-aimee-lee-culture-bearers/ Mon, 14 Apr 2025 19:52:08 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=10400 Lee combines tradition, identity, and experimentation to bring the art of hanji to the Midwest and beyond.

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]]> Korean American artist and papermaker Aimee Lee expected to become a professional violinist. But in art history class at Oberlin, studying Chinese landscapes painted on Korean paper, she had a “lightbulb moment.”

An illustration of a person of medium-light skin tone with long wavy black hair and glasses, wearing a coral top
Photo Credit: Rachelle Baker
Aimee Lee

“Why am I studying Chinese art if I don’t know anything about Korean art?” she realized. “How can I study Korean art if I had rejected my Koreanness?”

Until then, the 19-year-old Lee had insisted on speaking English to her parents. But she decided to speak Korean again, and traveled to Korea to refresh her skills. On subsequent travels, she encountered the artisans behind Korean paper, or hanji, hand-made from the bark of the paper mulberry plant.

Lee’s “lightbulb moment” led her to continue studying visual art, and she fell in love with bookmaking and papermaking. When she discovered there was very little research about hanji in English, she applied for her first Fulbright—that Fulbright year in Korea “made it very clear that this would be my life path,” she says.

It was difficult to get training in a discipline typically performed by men in rural communities. But Lee says once she found a teacher–after six months of searching!–“all these doors that felt slammed in my face started to open.” She studied with a basketmaker, a natural dyer, a calligrapher–artists who worked with the hanji she was learning to make.

Lee developed lectures and workshops to share what she’d learned. She worked with the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland to build the first North American hanji studio. Rather than big cities like New York that “already had so much,” she felt she could make a greater impact in the Midwest. She published Hanji Unfurled, the first English-language book about hanji. She now has dozens of residencies, exhibitions, publications, and awards to her name. But she was still surprised to hear a student say, “You’ve influenced every Asian American papermaker.”

“When I grew up, it was totally uncool to do work based on your lineage,” says Lee. “It’s so heartening to see that it’s now a point of pride.”

A magenta duck with yellow bill woven out of paper.
Photo Credit: Stefan Hagen
Learning duck (2018) by Aimee Lee. Brazilwood and onion skin dyes on corded and twined hanji.
A dress made out of paper with a black short sleeved jacket and pleated skirt with black ink prints of laced bark on white paper.
Photo Credit: Stefan Hagen
Hybrid (2024) by Aimee Lee. Ink on handmade paper, thread.
A tan teapot woven out of Korean paper (called hanji) using jiseung (paper basketry) techniques in the shape of a duck with a lid on the back shaped like a duckling, both with reddish pink beaks.
Photo Credit: Stefan Hagen
Duck & duckling teapot (2020) by Aimee Lee. Natural dyes, corded on twined hanji.
A person with long black hair in a red apron standing next to a person with long brown hair in a yellow patterned apron as the center person pulls a bamboo screen away from a table next to a vat, in a papermaking studio. Watching from the vat is another person with black hair.
Photo Credit: Gus Chan
Aimee guides a student as she removes a bamboo screen from a growing stack of wet paper during a weeklong hanji retreat in 2024.

Lee creates artist books, woven baskets, animals, even garments with hanji. Some she buys from Korean papermakers, whom she is proud to support. Some she makes herself–a laborious process of cultivating the plants, stripping away layers of bark, boiling, beating by hand, pressing, and drying… before letting the paper rest for a year or more. She uses plants native to her Ohio home, such as milkweed, which creates a “super-hybrid hanji very reflective of [her Korean-American] identity.”

Lee says the Midwest Culture Bearers Award has made her feel “seen for the heart of my work… in a way that the contemporary art world isn’t always equipped to understand.” The connection between artist, art, and the community around both is crucial for Lee. “Connecting my heritage from my family line with my place of birth with my skills and interests is how I embody a living tradition that will always feed my studio and community practice,” she says. “I think that connection is why art is so powerful.”

Aimee Lee is a 2024 recipient of the Midwest Culture Bearers Award, which celebrates and financially supports the work of Midwest culture bearers and folk arts practitioners.

The Midwest Culture Bearers Award is supported by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts for project management.

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]]> A 40-Year-Old Quilting Community Creates a Patchwork of Stories https://artsmidwest.org/stories/carolyn-mazloomi-women-of-color-quilters-network/ Tue, 25 Feb 2025 15:05:17 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=9470 Carolyn Mazloomi, now in her late 70s, has been quilting for decades. She calls the art both a passage and keepsake for stories—of struggle to survival and success.

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]]> Quilts. Sure, they’re bedcovers to keep you cozy over these long Midwestern nights—but they’re also art. Narratives. Archives of our past. 

Fitting all that into bits of fabric is Ohio-based Carolyn Mazloomi, whose middle name might as well be “Master Quilter.” 

Forty years ago, she noticed a lack of community among artists like herself. So, she founded the Women of Color Quilters Network in 1985. The national organization has grown from just nine women to over 1,500 at its peak. 

“I founded the organization because I felt that, at the time, there needed to be a guild or an organization that would support African-American quilt makers,” she says. “They were not members of regular quilt guilds, and it was because their work wasn’t so much accepted within the larger white quilt community.” 

Mazloomi says she wanted to find a place—maybe the place—in American quilt history for Black makers.  

“This history has to be preserved. Even though it is difficult, they have to be preserved.”

CAROLYN MAZLOOMI, FOUNDER OF THE WOMEN OF COLOR QUILTERS NETWORK

“Quilts tell the stories of the struggles and the survival and the triumph of Black people, and they reflect the lived lives of their makers,” she says. 

They serve as records of personal and collective history, Mazloomi says, from slavery to civil rights, race relations to simply day-to-day stories.

Art piece of two people standing in the rain wearing yellow boots.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has over 30 quilts from Mazloomi’s collection of pieces.

‘A Visual Voice’

Mazloomi says Black communities tend to utilize unique patterns: vibrant colors and improvisational styles.

Sometimes this caused friction and criticism, if it was even looked at in the first place. But more than anything, the style became a community. A home.

“That gives us a sense of identity and solidarity and pride in our quilt-making. So quilt-making has long been a visual voice for marginalized people,” she says.

“And this, to me, is wonderful. And it’s very inspiring for future generations of Black quilt makers.”

Women in Mazloomi’s network skew older; the average member age is somewhere between 75 and 103, she says. Some teach youth around the country in an effort to reach younger folks.

And quilting remains relevant in visible spaces (see a current exhibit featuring works by Mazloomi’s quilters network at Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Art Museum). But like the quilting process itself, shifting demographics take time.

“It’s coming along slowly,” says Mazloomi.

Stitching Stories 

Less than half of Americans identify as book readers. Luckily for us, we can glean stories in art, too, not just through vocabulary. 

“We are not a nation of readers. So I think it’s an easy fix to tell these visual stories because we’re basically visual learners,” Mazloomi says, adding dozens of states have limited African-American history in schools. 

Enter story quilts, visible in Mazloomi’s work. They portray Black history—even (especially) the traumatic stuff. 

A print of an artwork featuring a red, white, and black flag.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist
A print of Carolyn Mazloomi’s quilt “Hands Up Don’t Shoot.”

“It’s a way to tell difficult stories visually in places that are safe, where you can have a safe conversation about these difficult topics and talk about them,” Mazloomi says.  

“But these stories have to be preserved. This history has to be preserved. Even though it is difficult, they have to be preserved.” 

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]]> Three Midwestern ‘Emerging Chefs’ in Top Culinary Awards List https://artsmidwest.org/stories/2025-midwestern-emerging-chef-james-beard-nominees/ Mon, 10 Feb 2025 17:45:43 +0000 https://artsmidwest.org/?p=9424 If selected, they would be one of four Midwesterners to receive this early career recognition since the category’s inception in 2000.

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The annual announcement of James Beard Award Semifinalists inspires new food adventures and a renewed appreciation for the culinary arts.

This year, three Midwesterners are among the 20 “Emerging Chef” contenders. If selected, they would be one of four Midwesterners to receive this early career recognition since the category’s inception in 2000.

For the last three decades, the foundation has recognized “exceptional talent in the culinary and food media industries,” according to their press release. Winners will be announced at the James Beard Foundation ceremony in June; this year’s celebration marks the 35th anniversary of the James Beard Awards.

Meet the Midwestern semifinalists in the 2025 Emerging Chef category.

Photo Credit: 4Front Studios
Chef Marcela Salas from BibiSol

Marcela Salas, BibiSol

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

The mother-daughter duo of Patricia Burbine and Marcela Salas started Salas Salsas as a small farmers market pop-up in 2020. They then expanded their tamale and salsa business to local grocery stores before opening a seasonal food truck in 2022 that quickly built a regular following.

Then, in July 2024, Salas, along with her fiancé Chris Nelson and her mother, opened BibiSol—the only Mexican restaurant on the main stretch of downtown Sioux Falls.

According to their website: “Sacred foods and traditional practices like nixtamalization are at the heart of our dishes, which are crafted with locally sourced ingredients and sustainable methods.”

From nixtamal blue corn sope served with locally sourced proteins and greens, to potato and cheese tacquitos, BibiSol is said to be pushing the food culture in this growing Midwestern city.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Feld
Chef Jake Potashnick from Feld

Jake Potashnick, Feld

Chicago, Illinois

Jake Potashnick traveled the world to learn from the best chefs and work at some of the top restaurants, all before he was 30. While opening his first restaurant, he amassed a following on TikTok (as @notyetachef) for sharing his candid insights and love for food.

In June 2024, he welcomed foodies to Feld, a fine dining restaurant in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. With an evolving tasting menu, Feld is “a relationship-to-table restaurant” highlighting produce sourced from their “network of growers, ranchers, fishermen, and dairy farmers.”

According to their website, “Feld is a demonstration in true seasonality, where the menu for each evening is created that morning in response to the produce available on that day.” Meals are “prepared and plated directly in front of the guest, in the center of our dining room.”

Photo Credit: Trevor Biggs / Courtesy of The Aperture
Crispy polenta, a menu item at The Aperture in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Photo Credit: Trevor Biggs / Courtesy of The Aperture
The dining room at The Aperture.
Photo Credit: Jack X. Li / Courtesy of Feld
Assorted dishes from the menu at Feld in Chicago, Illinois.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Feld
The interiors of Feld.
Photo Credit: 4Front Studios
BibiSol in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Photo Credit: 4Front Studios
Menu items at BibiSol use nixtamal corn.
Photo Credit: Trevor Biggs / Courtesy of The Aperture
Chef Jordan Anthony-Brown from The Aperture

Jordan Anthony-Brown, The Aperture

Cincinnati, Ohio

After spending years at prominent restaurants in Washington D.C., Cincinnati native Jordan Anthony-Brown moved back in 2018 to open The Aperture.

As he navigated the pandemic, the chef had hosted several pop-ups since 2020. In an interview with a local magazine, Anthony-Brown said that this process helped him find what would bring happiness [to his guests] and creativity [to his team].

The Aperture in Walnut Hills finally opened in early 2024—and was soon featured in the New York Times’s annual Restaurant List of their 50 favorites that same year.

The menu is inspired by cuisine from both the Mediterranean and the American South, with a focus on balance—a nod to “aperture” in photography. From hummus to sweet potato, to duck breast, and porchetta, you can travel the world and back at this restaurant.

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