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Celebrate 50 years of the Governor’s Awards for the Arts tonight

SCETV special starts at 8 p.m.


Tonight, South Carolina ETV will premiere the stories of nine high-profile past recipients of the Governor's Awards for the Arts at 8 p.m. on South Carolina ETV and streaming.

The South Carolina Arts Commission, the sole presenter of the Governor’s Awards for the Arts, initiated a film project telling the story of the awards for their 50th anniversary. Host Jackie Adams (right) will lead viewers through the result: nine vignettes that look at South Carolina arts, culture, and history through the eyes of living, high-profile South Carolina artists who have received the award through the past 50 years:
  • John Acorn
  • Wilfred Delphin
  • Mary Jackson
  • Glenis Redmond
  • Tom Stanley
  • William Starrett
  • Leo Twiggs
  • Sam Wang
  • Cecil Williams
Read the SCAC news release on The Hub here. Adams, a freelance on-camera talent based in Columbia with an extensive arts background, will introduce the films that profile each artist. The filmmakers behind them, Renderhouse Films of Columbia, spent several months documenting the artists. They turned nine stories that cross diverse lines— racial, ethnic, gender, and artistic disciplines—into individual works of art themselves, notable for their high production quality.

How to watch

South Carolina ETV, the state’s public educational broadcasting network, will broadcast through its 11-station TV network that spans the state. Viewers can access the broadcast via: Further information about accessing SCETV is available here. Can't make it or forget to DVR? Subsequent re-airings of the production will occur on other SCETV channels, including Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. on the South Carolina Channel and Jan. 23 at 2 p.m. on ETV World.

Jason Rapp

SCAC to celebrate 50 years of Governor’s Awards for the Arts

SCETV to premiere retrospective special on Jan. 5


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLUMBIA, S.C. – A retrospective broadcast commemorating 50 years of the South Carolina Governor’s Awards for the Arts with the stories of nine high-profile past recipients is to premiere Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023 at 8 p.m. on South Carolina ETV.

The South Carolina Arts Commission, the sole presenter of the Governor’s Awards for the Arts, initiated a film project telling the story of the awards for their 50th anniversary. The result was nine vignettes that look at South Carolina arts, culture, and history through the eyes of living, high-profile South Carolina artists who have received the award through the past 50 years:
  • John Acorn
  • Wilfred Delphin
  • Mary Jackson
  • Glenis Redmond
  • Tom Stanley
  • William Starrett
  • Leo Twiggs
  • Sam Wang
  • Cecil Williams
“The South Carolina Arts Commission is extremely proud of its role in recognizing our state’s most accomplished artists and advocates with the Governor’s Awards for the Arts each year. If the pandemic had one silver lining, it forced us to switch from an in-person format to a streaming presentation that allowed our work to continue while being accessible,” SCAC Executive Director David T. Platts said. “In 2022, our homegrown streaming presentation became a broadcast on South Carolina ETV. It has been a pleasure to partner again with them to commemorate this anniversary. Renderhouse Films did a phenomenal job telling these artists’ compelling stories, and it all came together in a special way.” A woman with long gray hair smiling and wearing a black top.Jackie Adams (right), a freelance on-camera talent based in Columbia with an extensive arts background, will be host of the hour-long broadcast. She will introduce the films that profile each artist. The filmmakers behind them, Renderhouse Films of Columbia, spent several months documenting the artists. They turned nine stories that cross diverse lines— racial, ethnic, gender, and artistic disciplines—into individual works of art themselves, notable for their high production quality. Adams’ 25 years of experience include positions in non-profit arts administration and leadership, arts education, community arts, and curatorial and studio practice with Columbia College, the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, Richland County School District One, Lewis and Clark, and many statewide, regional, national artists. South Carolina ETV, the state’s public educational broadcasting network, will broadcast the retrospective premiere 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. Subsequent re-airings of the production will occur on other SCETV channels, including Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. on the South Carolina Channel and Jan. 23 at 2 p.m. on ETV World.

About the South Carolina Arts Commission

The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission 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 artist development, arts industry, arts learning, creative placemaking, and folklife and traditional arts. 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 SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696, and follow @scartscomm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for #Arts4SC and #SCartists content.
South Carolina Arts Commission News Release, Media Contact: Jason L. Rapp, Communications Director. jrapp@arts.sc.gov or 803.734.8899

Jason Rapp

Tuning Up: Creative Placemaking, Gullah Geechee in Philadelphia, more

Good morning!  "Tuning Up" is a morning post series where The Hub delivers quick-hit arts stories of interest to readers. Sometimes there will be one story, sometimes there will be several. Get in tune now, and have a masterpiece of a day. And now, in no particular order...


  • You'll be hearing more from us about this, but we have to start somewhere. South Arts is presenting the "Beyond Big Cities" Southern Creative Placemaking Conference in Chattanooga, Tenn. next month. This is the place to be for civic/arts leaders interesting in leveraging the creative assets in rural communities and small towns to attract and retain residents, creatives and businesses, and bring visitors to experience the unique nature of your place.
  • The Gullah Geechee remain in the spotlight, this time as Aunt Pearlie Sue and the Gullah Kinfolk take the story of Gullah Geechees to the City of Brotherly Love for a free performance at Villanova University. The performance will recognize the important link between Philadelphia and the Sea Islands of S.C. during slavery and Reconstruction. Group leader Anita Singleton-Prather is a Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award winner and an acclaimed musician, storyteller, and actress.
  • Verner Award recipients Jonathan Green (2010) and William Starrett (2002) rekindle a collaboration that took Green's paintings (right) Off the Wall and Onto the Stage with Columbia City Ballet when they reprise the critically acclaimed ballet at Township Auditorium in Columbia this Friday and in Charleston Saturday, March 3.
  • And finally, a hearty congratulations to Arts Commission Chairman Henry Horowitz for receiving the Buck Mikel Leadership Award from the Greenville Chamber of Commerce.

South Carolina Ballet production to celebrate human spirit in response to Emanuel AME shootings

From the Charleston Post and Courier Article by Adam Parker

When William Starrett, artistic director of the Columbia City Ballet, received in 2002 an Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award, artist Jonathan Green delivered the remarks at the ceremony. Green was impressed enough by Starrett’s accomplishments to offer the ballet director a painting to auction as a fundraiser. Starrett was speechless and grateful. Once he gathered himself, he said he wanted to make a ballet based on Green’s art. Three years and $1.2 million later, the ballet company presented "Off the Wall and Onto the Stage: Dancing the Art of Jonathan Green." At the end of each vignette, dancers formed a tableau mimicking one of Green’s paintings, then a huge screen dropped to the stage revealing an enlarged reproduction of the original piece of art. Arguably, the show is to Columbia City Ballet what “Revelations” is to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: a beloved cornerstone of its repertoire that helps define the company. Now the dance troupe is working again with Green and several others to produce a new work that honors the victims of the Emanuel AME Church shooting, their families and the broader community, whose members continue to grapple with the significance and aftermath of a terrible crime. “Emanuel: Love is the Answer” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. April 1 at the Sottile Theatre, 44 George St., with support from the Patrick Family Foundation and the South Carolina Arts Commission. The ballet will include a series of danced vignettes involving 22 of the company’s 32 dancers, Starrett said. “This is my effort to make sense of all this, and to heal from it,” he said. The multimedia production is by the South Carolina Ballet, an enterprise of Columbia City Ballet. It will include projected videos and images: Green’s colorful Gullah-inspired paintings, Jenny Horne’s now-famous General Assembly speech calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse grounds, comments from great spiritual and political leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa, and more. The 90-minute ballet will be organized into three parts, beginning with an exploration of “how we are here and why,” continuing with a survey of the social progress we’ve made in South Carolina and concluding with a rumination on love, fraternity, forgiveness and acceptance, Starrett said. “Dance is a great art form to help unify and bring us together,” he said. Starrett grew up in California, danced professionally with the Royal Winnepeg Ballet, Geoffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theater, then settled in South Carolina 30 years ago to run the Columbia-based ballet company. He said “Emanuel: Love is the Answer” surely has a spiritual dimension, thanks in part to its use of paintings. “All art, especially visual art, is a form of prayer,” he said. Charles “Bud” Ferillo, coordinator of the South Carolina Collaborative for Race and Reconciliation, a project of the University of South Carolina, said his organization endorses the ballet project. Ferillo is helping to promote it. “This ballet is poetry in motion and will be the basis for further healing,” the Charleston native said. "Every citizen, of every race, will benefit from this performance.” Horne said she was driven to deliver her heartfelt speech, credited with pushing reluctant lawmakers to agree to the flag’s removal, because the banner was an offense to her friends. “It was personal.” She had known the Rev. Clementa Pinckney first as a young page at the Statehouse and later as a senator, and his death at the hands of a white supremacist on June 17, 2015, was devastating. When she witnessed many thousands of people enduring the summer heat and hoping to gain access to Pinckney’s funeral, she was especially moved, she said. “The image of young and old, black and white, American and people here to tour the city from other countries” — this array of grieving people gave her hope. So in a last-minute, Hail-Mary attempt to convince her colleagues to take down the flag, she delivered her fiery, from-the-heart speech. Though she is no longer serving in the Legislature, her speech continues to reverberate. And now it is part of a work of art. “I’m so grateful to be part of this beautiful tribute to the families, the victims, this church and this city and all of South Carolina,” Horne said. Tickets for the ballet are $25-$45 and available at http://columbiacityballet.com/production/emanuel9/. The company will perform "Emanuel" at the Camden Fine Arts Center on April 4 and at Columbia's Koger Arts Center on April 7 and 8.