Dear New Yorker:

On Tuesday, February 14, Dance/NYC and its Junior Committee will join the New York City Arts Coalition and sister arts groups statewide for Arts Day in Albany.

This is an important opportunity for the City’s dance community—artists and managers—to meet our representatives and help make the case for State funding. The 2012-2013 executive budget released last week recommends $37.7million in total funding for the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), a $1.2 million decrease from the budget for 2011-2012.

Join us and be the change you want to see for dance in New York.

Click here to register. ($15 Coalition members; $30, non-members)

As you may know, Dance/NYC joined the Coalition in 2011 to launch the Fifty Years, Fifty Stories multimedia campaign celebrating NYSCA’s fiftieth anniversary—a campaign described by Stuart Elliott of The New York Times as “State of the New York Arts.” We need to keep the campaign momentum alive to support NYSCA.

Visit Dance/NYC, the New York City Arts Coalition and the Arts NYS Coalition to monitor the State developments. For national advocacy news, visit Dance/USA and the Performing Arts Alliance.

With your help, I know we will succeed. Onward.

Lane Harwell
Director, Dance/NYC
Steering Committee, New York City Arts Coalition

PS. Join Dance/NYC at its State of NYC Dance Symposium on February 26 for a discussion of Big Picture Advocacy: Taxes, Technology, Travel and, yes, Arts with Dance/USA’s Director of Government Affairs, Brandon Gryde.