Have a look at our September/October Contributors’ page and you’ll see how many people gave their time and expertise to make this issue a success. Libby Hanssen and Robert Trussell each did their usual authoritative job compiling their respective guides to upcoming music and dance performances and a blowout KC theater season. For our visual arts lookahead, 10 KC Studio visual arts writers took stock of 30 exhibits in Kansas City and the region to give readers an informed overview of the best at area museums and galleries.
Our package celebrating Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art’s 30th anniversary is an illustrated trip down memory lane, which entailed the efforts of 15 experts in the field whose memories span the Kemper era, and five former museum staffers. It was a great pleasure to reconnect with Dan Keegan and Elizabeth Dunbar after so many years, to stay in touch with Erin Dziedzic, the latest Kemper curator to hold that post, and to learn what KC-based Dana Self and Rachael Blackburn Cozad found most memorable from their years at the museum.
The Kemper is not the only KC arts institution celebrating an important anniversary this year. The Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts marks its 35th year of significant contributions to the city’s arts ecology, as recounted in our story by Harold Smith, page 84. And while we’re on the subject of the city’s arts ecology, a big hats off to the Kansas City Streetcar Authority for its ongoing efforts to showcase KC’s cultural vibrancy through a collaboration with Art in the Loop (see story, page 30,) and most recently with Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, resulting in the first-ever art museum streetcar wrap depicting details of works in the museum’s permanent collection in honor of its 30th anniversary.
This season is also marked by significant departures and arrivals at major arts institutions. Charlotte Street executive/artistic director Amy Kligman, who undertook the yeoman’s effort of establishing the organization in a spectacular new headquarters at 3333 Wyoming, will leave the post she held for nearly a decade at the end of the year. KC Repertory Theatre recently said goodbye to Angela Gieras, its executive director for the past 13 years, who, like Kligman, steered the organization through the pandemic and instituted transformative changes. Gieras begins a new job Sept. 13 as executive director of Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.
Several organizations welcome new leaders, including the Unicorn Theatre, where new artistic director Ernie Nolan (see page 48), who comes to KC following posts in Chicago and Nashville, has been hired to fill the Brobdingnagian shoes of the legendary Cynthia Levin. KC Jazz Orchestra also has a new executive director with the appointment of Alyssa Bell Jackson, a gifted and popular musician and former board member of the organization. And, as reported by our enthusiast for all things Linda Hall, Bryan Le Beau, the library recently announced the appointment of Scott Perich to the new post of vice president of exhibitions and project management. (See story, page 88.) Perich has hit the ground running with a fall exhibit of rare books and a soon to open exhibit, “Life Beyond Earth?” promising a look at aliens, exoplanets and UFOS beginning Oct. 25. Sounds like a winner.
