Throughout 2014, ArtsWave’s arts and community partners made an impact on our region, creating community through the arts. Here are just 25 of the amazing arts stories from this past year.  Have a favorite story to add?  Tell us about it on Twitter #CincyArts2014.

CBalletCamelot1. Cincinnati Ballet celebrated its 50th anniversary by creating a new ballet from scratch: Camelot had its world premiere in February 2014.

2.Madcap Puppets received a $500,000 grant from the City of Cincinnati to help complete its new theater in Westwood, the center of a neighborhood redevelopment project.

3.The 
Behringer-Crawford Museum presented 40 oral histories of Vietnam War veterans in the powerful Vietnam: Our Story exhibit.

4.Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati brought regional premiere productions of The Mountaintop and Tribes to local audiences.

5.Cincinnati May Festival inspired the Cincy in NYC event that brought together multiple Cincinnati arts organizations and business and civic leaders in New York City in May 2014, culminating in a concert at Carnegie Hall.

6.Cincinnati Shakespeare Company became one of only five theaters in the nation to “Complete the Canon” by producing all 38 of Shakespeare’s plays.

7.Contemporary Arts Center celebrated its 75th anniversary and hosted exhibits for the citywide FotoFocus biennial celebration of the art of photography.

8.Cincinnati Black Theater Company received an Arts for Health grant from ArtsWave to bring its program – Kick Obesity – You Gotta Move – to more community centers throughout the region.

9.Taft Museum of Art took its famous Rembrandt, Portrait of a Man Rising from His Chair, to visit the portrait of his wife hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for Cincy in NYC.

10. The Carnegie provided more than 5,000 hours of arts integration workshops in Covington and other Northern Kentucky schools.

11. Elementz Hip Hop Center for Youth collaborated with a wide range of arts organizations in 2014, including the Cincinnati Boychoir and the Cincinnati Ballet.

12. For FotoFocus 2014, ArtWorks partnered with Cincinnati Metro and renowned photographer Richard Rinaldi to extend his Touching Strangers project and create intimate portraits of Cincinnati residents for display on bus shelters throughout the city.

13. Know Theatre Cincinnati welcomed a new Artistic Director Andrew Hungerford and Associate Artistic Director Tamara Winters.

14. Kentucky Symphony Orchestra celebrated its 20th summer of free concerts in Devou Park.

15. Visionaries and Voices presented at the National Arts Education conference in San Diego on their Teaching Artist Program that brings artists with disabilities into local classrooms as leaders and educators.

16. Bi-Okoto introduced B-FIT Zumba-style classes inspired by traditional African dance at its Cultural Center in Pleasant Ridge.

17. Kennedy Heights Arts Center broke ground on the new Carl, Robert, Richard and Dorothy Lindner Annex that will provide new studio and performance space and allow for significant expansion of programming.

18. Cincinnati Children’s Choir toured to Beijing and Shanghai China in June.

19. Cincinnati Landmark Productions broke ground on the new Warsaw Incline Theatre in Price Hill, scheduled to open in June 2015.

20. Cincinnati Boychoir celebrated its 50th Anniversary and began a new residency at the Aronoff Center.

21. Playhouse in the Park staged the world premiere of Safe House in October, a new play about the Underground Railroad.

22. Cincinnati Art Museum welcomed its new Director, Cameron Kitchin, in November.

23. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra collaborated with the Mayerson JCC and  ArtWorks to create the What is a hero? Sukkah event as part of its One City, One Symphony celebration.

24. Cincinnati Opera and CCM continued Opera Fusion, a project to develop new American operas, with a workshop and presentation of Great Scott, a work about opera and football in the Midwest.

25. MYCincinnati (Music for Youth Orchestra) won a highly-competitive Impact 100 award, allowing it to double its hours of operation and expand its age-range offerings.