Culture of Kansas City

contemporary opera production during its annual season consisting of either four or five productions. The Lyric Opera also is located at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, performs at the Folly Theater in downtown, and the UMKC Performing Arts Center. Every summer from mid-June to early July, The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival has a production at Southmoreland Park near the Nelson-Atkins Museum. Marilyn Strauss founded the festival in 1993 and it has gone on ever since.

The Kansas City Ballet, founded in 1957 by Tatiana Dokoudovska, is a ballet troupe comprising 25 professional dancers and apprentices. Between 1986 and 2000, it was combined with Dance St. Louis to form the State Ballet of Missouri, although it remained located in Kansas City. From 1980 to 1995, the Ballet was run by dancer and choreographer Todd Bolender. Today, the Ballet offers an annual repertory split into three seasons which ranges from classical to contemporary ballets. The Ballet also is located at The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Kansas City is also home to The Kansas City Chorale, a professional 24-voice chorus conducted by Charles Bruffy. They perform an annual concert series in Kansas City and a concert in Phoenix each year with their sister choir, the Phoenix Chorale. The Chorale has achieved international renown with 9 recordings (3 with the Phoenix Chorale).

Kansas City jazz in the 1930s marked the transition from big bands to the bebop influence of the 1940s. The 1979 documentary The Last of the Blue Devils portrays this era in interviews and performances by jazz notables from KC.

In the 1970s, Kansas City attempted to resurrect the glory of the jazz era in a sanitized family friendly atmosphere. In the 1970s, an effort to open jazz clubs