Big changes are afoot with the Arts & Cultural Council.
Last Thursday, the board elected philanthropist Dawn Lipson as its new
president. Other new officers include former Brighton Supervisor Sandra
Frankel; Bleu Cease, director of Rochester Contemporary Art Center; Eric Townell, artistic director of Rochester Lyric Opera; Baal Bhagat, a director with the Kalidas
Indo-American Community Theater Group; and Hon. Cynthia Kaleh. Annette Ramos, founder of Rochester
Latino Theatre Company, now serves on the board as chair of the Diversity Committee.

The council
has also partnered with the Rochester Area Community Foundation and plans to
collaborate with other agencies, which board members say will have a positive
impact for the arts in the Rochester area.

Lipson, who
served on the council years ago, returned to the board two months ago. She says
she was approached because many people felt the council needed invigorating, “that
it wasn’t functioning the way it should function, and wasn’t maintaining its
relevancy to the arts and culture in our community.”

The
council’s operations have been relatively low-key since 2014, when news of its
financial troubles broke, and Sarah Lentini resigned
as CEO. The council then moved its offices from Goodman Street at College Avenue to northwest
Rochester and last year, moved to 31 Prince Street and opened a gallery at 384
East Avenue.

The board is
reexamining the council’s mission, Lipson says, and will reach out to other arts
and cultural organizations for input about the council’s future. That’s a
response to criticisms Lipson has heard from people who felt that there wasn’t
any place to call when they had arts questions, when they needed collaboration,
or when they were looking for artists for particular events.

“Those are
all the kinds of things that the arts council should be doing,” she says. “We’re
not the provider of the arts, we’re the connector.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated from the original to correct information about board members’ roles, and to clarify the specific location on Goodman Street that used to house the council.

This article appears in Aug 24-30, 2016.