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Actor, director and co-writer Bradley Cooper and supporting actor Dave Chappelle sat on the front stage of the Little Art Theatre, to speak about and answer questions on Bradley's 2018 release of “A Star is Born” (Submitted photo by Frédéric Yonnet)
The Decade in Review: Arts
- Published: January 2, 2020
• In 2010, “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant,” a 42-minute documentary by villagers Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. The film follows the closure of a General Motors factory in Moraine.
• In 2010, after 31 years at the helm of the Community Chorus, Ruth Bent passed the baton to James Johnston.
• In 2010, the YS Arts Council joined nearly 20 other groups to launch the YS Experience, 10 days of educational and cultural workshops and events.
• In 2011, eight years after the last shows were produced by longtime community theater outfit Center Stage, Kay Reimers reinstated a community theater troupe under the same name. It closed in 2014, and YS Theater Company, which continues to produce plays each year, was founded later the same year.
• In 2011, the first annual Cyclops Fest was held, featuring local music, live craft demos and stalls selling handmade art and crafts items on the Bryan Center lawn. The festival took a hiatus in 2017, and returned in 2018 before organizers decided to end the festival’s run.
• In 2012, the Arts Council and the Yellow Springs Experience sponsored the first annual “Love-In,” a weekend of artistic and cultural events with a nod to the village’s “hippie” reputation.
• In 2012, the YS Arts Council moved from the Oten Gallery to its current location at 111 Corry St., which was formerly occupied by Dolbeer’s Dry Cleaning.
• In 2013, the World House Choir, directed by Cathy Roma, was formed.
• In 2013, the first National Bronze Sculpture Symposium was held in the village. Four sculptors spent the week creating bronze pieces that were placed around downtown Yellow Springs.
• In 2014, John Fleming retired from his position as director of YS Kids Playhouse after 25 years, passing directorship to Ara Beal, who left for another job in 2018. He returned in 2019 for “Bonanza Valley!”
• In 2014, the YS Summer Strings and Band celebrated 50 years of summer concerts.
• In 2014, the Foundry Theater at Antioch College was renovated for the first time since the 1980s, and was reopened in September.
• In 2014, The Russian Trio won the 29th annual Chamber Music in Yellow Springs Competition for Emerging Professional Ensembles. Just two weeks after winning the competition, the trio’s cellist, Dmitry Volkov, died of heart failure in his sleep; he was 26.
• In 2015, after 36 years, the last “Women’s Voices Out Loud” event was held. The event featured visual and performance art from local women. In 2012, public controversy was sparked when Village employees objected to nude artwork on display in the halls of the Bryan Center, where the exhibition had been held for many years. It was moved to Antioch College the following years. Organizers said the controversy and its changing venues led to more sparse crowds, signaling the end of the annual event.
• In 2015, the 15th and final YS Artist Studio Tour was held. The annual event, organized by Lisa Goldberg, featured a self-guided tour of artist studios around the YS area. In 2016, the YS Arts Council initiated the annual YS Open Studios event, which operates in the same way.
• In 2015, actor, comedian and villager Dave Chappelle hosted the first Juke Joint at Whitehall Farm, featuring star-studded musical performances and guest appearances.
• The Dayton Mandolin Orchestra, which was largely made up of Yellow Springs musicians and directed by James Johnston since 2010, disbanded in 2015. The DMO was revived in 2003 after a long hiatus, and was originally formed in 1906.
• In 2016, the first annual Springsfest was held on the grounds of the Bryan Center. The festival has featured local, regional and national music acts.
• The AACW Blues Fest held its final performances in the summer of 2016. The annual event, which ran for 16 straight years, 1997–2013, held encore performances in 2015 and 2016. African American Cross-Cultural Works, or AACW, organized the Blues Fest; the organization and festival were conceived by community activist Faith Patterson and Antioch College music professor Bill Chappelle, who built on the successful African American Cultural Week put on in 1991 by Antioch College student John Sims. Chappelle died in 1998; Patterson died in 2016, and was memorialized at that year’s Blues Fest.
• In 2016, the YS Theater Company held its first “Summer Shakespeare Shindig,” a production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” at Antioch College, in homage to the renowned Antioch Shakespeare Festival of the 1950s.
• In 2017, the first Cello Springs Festival, an annual 10-day event featuring cello performances and workshops, as well as other instruments, was held in the village.
• In 2017, a variety of local groups, including the YS Arts Council, launched an effort to honor Wheeling Gaunt — a former slave who bequeathed the land now known as Gaunt Park to the Village — with a statue to be created by local sculptor Brian Maughan. In 2018, Village Council approved its location at Hilda M. Rahn Park.
• In 2018, famed local band Paul’s Apartment reunited after 10 years for one show at Peach’s Grill.
• In 2018, the first annual YS PorchFest was held, with musicians performing on porches of homes and in front of businesses around the village.
• In 2018, Yellow Springs was starstruck when actors Bradley Cooper and Dave Chappelle held a Q&A at the Little Art Theatre after a screening of “A Star Is Born,” in which both actors starred.
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