Lane Harwell, Executive Director, Dance/NYC
Huff Post, Posted: 05/14/2014
There are lessons for the creative sector in the story of 280 Broadway, whose new tenant, Gibney Dance, opens its doors to the community to shape the future. In a real estate climate where too many are losing space and reporting escalating costs -- real threats to creative life -- some, like Gibney Dance, are making solutions.

The first of the lessons I offer here is the value of community engagement. As examples, opportunities for 280 Broadway are generated by the testimony of artists previously displaced by its closure in the fall of 2013 and new ideas brought forward both online through a Community Idea Portal and ongoing community forums. For example, see this video of a welcome session co-hosted by Dance/NYC.

For those focused on future space solutions, there is power to be leveraged through local community organizing--perhaps especially in non-Manhattan geographies, where increased attention by our sector, and all New Yorkers, is needed.

Second, there is a lesson learned from "'We Make Do' More Time Is Better, But Budget Is King,'" an Exploring the Metropolis study on dance rehearsal space commissioned by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Crucially, the study recommends shifting focus away from new construction to expanding use of existing facilities. Such is the case with 280 Broadway, which in its new incarnation makes use of previously occupied dance work, training, rehearsal, and performance space.

Third, there is a lesson about efficiencies of scale, achieved at 280 Broadway through synergies with Gibney Dance's other spaces at 890 Broadway. Beyond administrative and cost savings, the expanded Gibney Dance can offer space and programs to better support artists and organizations along the continuums of creative process, from rehearsal to performance, and of career and institutional advancement, from emerging to mid-career. 
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HiVE Vancouver is a non-profit social enterprise serving the social venture community. Our space is a unique coworking space located in the Gastown neighbourhood of Vancouver, BC. We are home to change makers, social enterprises, environmental sustainability groups and other creative class individuals that support social and environmental sustainability. With over 100 desks, 3 board rooms and 9,000 square feet of space, there’s a home for just about everyone at the HiVE.
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The "unique" partnership will provide affordable cultural space for local artists
CBC News Posted: Feb 05, 2014 Vancouver city council has voted to approve a unique partnership that will secure a cultural space for local artists at CBC for the next 30 years. 
   The City and CBC are welcoming the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival Society and partners — Touchstone Theatre, the Documentary Media Society (DOXA Documentary Film Festival), and Music on Main Society — to a community amenity at the CBC Vancouver Broadcast Centre.
   Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson says it makes both cultural and economic sense.
   “The city is proud to support affordable spaces for artists, and the community cultural hub in the CBC building is a great fit for groups like the PuSh Festival,” said the mayor.
   “Investing in the arts supports our economy and makes Vancouver a more creative, dynamic city."
   Robertson says the announcement has been in the works since 2006. That's when the city secured 8,477 square feet of ground floor space at CBC at a nominal rent for 99 years.
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The Huffington Post  |  By Michelle Manetti

Many abandoned homes are left to the elements, allowing nature to handle the demolition. But when artist Matthew Mazzotta came across an abandoned house in York, Alabama, he and his team decided to turn it into a foldable public theater called "Open House."

According to Inhabitat, with the materials and land from the old home, Mazzotta created a place that looks like a normal house, but can be unfolded to reveal a 100-seat space where the community can watch plays, movies and live musical performances.

It takes about an hour and a half to transform but as you can see if the video, found at this link, it's totally worth.

Happy Birthday!  54 years old today!

On July 5, 1959 the Queen Elizabeth Theatre opened to the public.  The Montreal-based architecture firm Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold, Michaud, and Sise won the open competition put on by the city for a new theatre.   Visit website

by: Matthew Westwood
From: The Australian
May 07, 2013
ARTS centres used to be remote and slightly forbidding places: getting to them involved undertaking a pilgrimage or at least a change of perspective. It may have meant crossing a river (how many arts centres are on a city's far embankment?) or ascending a hill or podium, as at the Sydney Opera House.  On Melbourne's St Kilda Road, the cultural tourist undertakes an obstacle course that sounds dauntingly medieval. A moat and water wall confront the visitor at the National Gallery of Victoria, while entry to the Arts Centre auditoriums involves a descent to the underworld. Right or wrong, the architectural narrative of these places is one of the visitor earning their entry to a special or even sacred zone.
These days, the story is changing. Arts centres - multi-venue complexes that may include a lyric theatre, concert hall, playhouse and a black-box studio - want to throw open the doors, put themselves at the centre of community life, and no longer be regarded by the populace with deference, cringe or fear. Read more

by MARSHA LEDERMAN The Globe and Mail, Jun. 07 2013
Next time you hear someone complain about fat cats in the arts living high off the government hog, consider Myriam Steinberg. Ms. Steinberg’s full-time occupation – for which she is barely compensated – is running a remarkable little festival called In the House, which you will find in 13 homes in a pocket of the Commercial Drive neighbourhood this weekend. The performances – 20 over three days – are literally in houses (or yards), including Ms. Steinberg’s not-exactly-spacious bungalow. With shows ranging from puppetry to music to burlesque, it is an innovative, exciting and highly intimate cultural experience. “It’s amazing,” says Ms. Steinberg, 39. “You’re up close and personal with the person beside you, and with a performer.” Ms. Steinberg is the force behind the festival, which is marking its 10th anniversary. Having run it (and related events throughout the year) for most of its history, she has made it happen with dedication, determination – and on a shoestring. Read more

Creative SpaceMaking Vancouver workshop: "Explorations in Creative SpaceMaking"

Get strategies, resources, and tools for creative spacemaking

$25.00 Early bird registration. $35.00 Regular registration. Nutrition break included. Advance registration only.

Hands-on and interactive, this half-day introductory workshop will appeal to artists, arts and cultural organizations and businesses, and emerging leaders in the cultural space discussion.

June 12 2013, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

This half-day workshop will be led by Canada’s premier cultural space organization, Artscape, with guests from the Vancouver cultural community. It will explore the issues and topics concerning cultural space, including strategies, resources and tools available to organizations today.

The workshop will also be an opportunity to network and learn from local organizations that have struggled with their space needs and have realized valuable and successful projects.

Space is limited—register early! Tickets will not be sold at the door.

Register Here

The Guardian, Cultural Professionals Network, Steve Winter and Cat Jones, May 2, 2013 - Theatre attendance and revenue for West End theatre rose by 9% in 2012 and The Book of Mormon scored the highest one-day box office sale in London's theatre history in March 2013. Conversely, In Battalions, a report into the effect of Arts Council England cuts on the capacity of theatres to develop new plays and playwrights, paints a more sombre picture.

For me, both demonstrate the great divide and the great passion people have for theatre, be it as an audience for the big blockbusters or as struggling practitioners experiencing the intrinsic difficulty in developing new work. Certainly there is an audience, and undoubtedly there's the talent, but it's getting more and more difficult to get work off the ground, to take those first tentative, often expensive steps to actually being creative.

The chance to be commissioned is rare and the chance to fail, as well as succeed, even rarer. Which is why, in 2013, Old Vic New Voices (OVNW) has decided to change tack, to worry less about projects but more about process, and to be led rather than lead. Our offer is simple, a direct response to those we work with and what they need to get work from page to stage.

Firstly, it's about space, the holy grail in London, a place where rent alone can break a creative practitioner's bank balance never mind the thought of finding a nice(ish) rehearsal room. It's important space doesn't dictate a performance, and doesn't demand an 'outcome' – and this is what our new OVNV Lab is about. Read More