2023 S.C. Arts Awards: Carlos Agudelo
Governor's Award: Individual Category
As the day nears for the 2023 South Carolina Arts Awards, The Hub is focusing on this year's recipients: five receiving the South Carolina Governor's Awards for the Arts from the South Carolina Arts Commission and two receiving the Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award, managed jointly by the SCAC and McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina.
Carlos Agudelo has been Ballet Spartanburg’s artistic director since 1991.
Among his choreography are classic and contemporary favorites, from The Nutcracker, Coppelia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Carmina Burana to The Hobbit, West Side Story, The Little Mermaid, The Wizard of Oz, and An American in Paris. Some of these have been performed at Piccolo Spoleto Festival, Columbia, Greenville, Greenwood, and Rutherford County, North Carolina.
Under Agudelo’s direction in 2012, Ballet Spartanburg formed a resident professional company comprised of a diverse group of dancers from across the world. For 10 years, it has performed from Spartanburg to North Carolina, Texas, and Las Vegas, in the process staging more than 85 presentations of his choreography.
A native of Colombia, Agudelo began his training with the Atlantic Foundation for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale under the direction of Ruth Petrinovic. He received a scholarship to study at the Harkness Ballet School in New York City and danced with the Israel Classic Ballet in Tel Aviv. He toured the world dancing with the International Ballet de Caracas under the direction of former Harkness Ballet dancer Vicente Nebrada. Alvin Ailey coached him in Ailey’s ballet, The River. He also danced with Ballet Hispanico of New York under the direction of Tina Ramirez.
Mr. Agudelo received the 2021 Civitan Servant’s Heart Award for the community of Spartanburg and the 2022 Spartanburg Citizen of the Year awarded by the Spartanburg Kiwanis Club. In 2018, Ballet Spartanburg was awarded the S.C. Governor’s Award for the Arts in the organization category.
The South Carolina Arts Awards are coming live to SCETV on Sunday, May 14, 2023 at 8 p.m. ET. South Carolina ETV, the state’s public educational broadcasting network, will broadcast the awards ceremony through its 11-station TV network that spans the state. Viewers can access the broadcast via livestream on the homepage of SCETV.org; by using a digital antenna; or through cable, satellite, and streaming live TV providers. Further information about accessing SCETV is available here.
Some notable items for your attention as we close out another week...
Hub City Press Director Meg Reid will assume the role of executive director and publisher.
Reid joined Hub City Writers Project in 2013 as assistant director, and in 2017 became director of Hub City Press and programs amid the press’s move to a national distributor. Reid has been an integral part of Hub City Press’s rise as a nationally significant publisher. Since 2017, Hub City Press books have made regular appearances in national newspapers, including at least eight mentions in the New York Times Book Review, as well as the Wall Street Journal, magazines like the New Yorker, and on NPR and Good Morning America. Books have won many awards and been longlisted for awards like the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and The Story Prize and have been translated into German, Italian, Vietnamese, Korean and many other languages. Reid was named a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree in 2021.
“I've watched Meg absolutely find her niche at Hub City over the last decade, and I know she’s ready to lead,” says Susan Myers, chair of Hub City Writers Projects’ board of directors. “We are beyond lucky to have her immense talent and experience to guide the organization with a clear vision.”
“The work I’ve done for Hub City over the past ten years has fundamentally changed the way I think about the world and has fostered in me a belief that inclusive literary communities are vital in all places, large and small,” says Reid. “I’m deeply honored to have the chance to lead the organization into its exciting next chapter.”
As the head of HCWP’s leadership team, Reid will develop a mission-driven business strategy and overall artistic vision for the organization, leading from a firm set of values based on equity, community partnerships, and transparency.
“Meg has devoted the past decade of her professional career advancing the mission of Hub City Writers Project,” Waters said. “She has done a phenomenal job as director of Hub City Press, and I expect she will do the same as executive director and publisher. I look forward to seeing what she and her extraordinary staff achieve in the coming years.”
Since its founding by Betsy Teter, John Lane, and Gary Henderson in 1995, Hub City Writers Project’s mission has been cultivating readers and nurturing writers through its independent press, community bookshop, literacy outreach, and diverse literary programming. Hub City Press has published over 100 high caliber literary works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, as well as books of regional history, and is the distributor of Southern Foodways Alliance’s Gravy Quarterly magazine. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Hub City Press books have been widely praised and featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. Hub City Bookshop has twice been named one of the South’s best bookshops by Southern Living, and was named 2019 Bookshop of the Year by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.
Every other year, Hub City Press and the South Carolina Arts Commission are partners in 
The Nonprofit Arts Administrator and Community Engagement Initiator provides support to the president/CEO and the board of directors to provide seamless administrative operation and supports the president/CEO with community engagement and creating connections to underserved audiences and creatives.
The successful candidate will be an individual who builds authentic relationships and values frequent engagement with diverse stakeholders. This individual will be resilient and flexible in addressing challenges and embracing opportunities; they will have a commitment to community engagement and a passion to collaborate with a wide range of artists and other professionals and promote accessibility and creativity throughout the region.
Interested? 
A 2018 installation exhibit at Spartanburg Art Museum by artist Jonathan Brilliant. Photo by Jake Francek/Social Design House.[/caption]
The South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) 
The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission (SCAC) is to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina. We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences.
A state agency created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the SCAC works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in four areas: arts learning, community and traditional arts, artist development, and arts industry. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the SCAC is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources. Visit 