A Building Boom for Local Dance, but Is The Barre Set Too High?

Thinking big: Fabian Barnes outside his 5 million dollar baby. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

"Dance can't just happen in any old space," Yeuell says, ticking off the requirements of his art: a large, open floor plan, high ceilings and no support pillars.

Where would he find such ideal emptiness if his landlords decided to sell?

As it happened, he found a solution -- as well as some new problems.

Working with the Cultural Development Corp., a nonprofit group that brokers real estate deals between developers and artists, Yeuell opened a Joy of Motion site at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, housed in a renovated movie theater and retail space in a developing area in Northeast. Stretched along a city block with swooping 1930s lines, the $20 million structure comprises two modest theaters for live performances (240 and 276 seats), office space and three dance studios. Joy of Motion moved in a year and a half ago; the theaters recently opened.

For the developers, having dance studios at sidewalk level is a terrific plus, offering a view of bodies at work that might well entice folks inside. And while Yeuell is still renting, his 20-year lease stipulates bonuses for community outreach efforts -- running youth camps, performing for children -- which lower his payments.

It's a great partnership -- in theory. There's just one catch, Yeuell says: Can he actually get enough paying students through the door to justify his expansion?

"We're now at a really pivotal point," he says of the dance scene in general. "It's all happening, but it's all on paper. Until the students walk in the door you really don't know if you're successful or not."

Lease or Own

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Once defined by its no-frills, grass-roots ingenuity, the 26-year-old Dance Place is poised for an upscale redo. In the plan put forth by the city and the Minneapolis-based Artspace Inc., a nonprofit real estate developer, Dance Place would own and operate the new structure's ground floor. Above it, there would be low-cost housing for artists as well as market-rate condominiums.

With all the new spaces going up around town, Dance Place Artistic Director Carla Perlo admits to feeling some theater envy. "This idea that you get a garage and convert it and you get a great space was definitely an ideal of the '60s and '70s," she says. "But we're in 2006. I think audiences would like a more comfortable theater setting. And because so many theaters have it, we would like to have it."

But there's a practical reason to expand as well, she says: Her year-round programming has outgrown Dance Place's intimate 175-seat capacity.

If Perlo goes ahead with the venture, she'll need to raise a whole lot of cash. Fortunately, foundations seem to like giving to capital campaigns. Funding a dance work leaves the donor with nothing tangible -- what you paid for vanishes as soon as the curtain drops. But a building provides a permanent advertisement of your munificence.

As more money goes into construction, however, the artists themselves tend to receive less. Choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess said that last year he was told by one foundation, which had been a regular supporter of his 15-year-old company, that "a lot of their funding was redirected for capital campaigns." As a result, he had to cut his budget 12 to 15 percent, which might mean the number of performances gets trimmed, or that some of his dancers see fewer paydays.

But what concerns him even more is whether the new theaters will be affordable for companies like his. "A new space can be built, but if it's outside the price range of our institutions, it doesn't matter because we won't be in it anyhow," he says.

Some new theaters -- such as the Atlas and the forthcoming 770-seat Harman Center, which is part of the Shakespeare Theatre's expansion near Chinatown -- will operate under rental contracts. A troupe rents the space and also pays for everything else needed to put on the show and sell tickets, including the backstage crew, box office and marketing staff.

Presenting organizations such as the Kennedy Center, the Washington Performing Arts Society and some university performance halls offer an appealing alternative. Presenters pay dance troupes a fee, and in exchange keep some or all of the box office receipts and provide the behind-the-scenes services. This takes much of the financial burden off the artists' shoulders.

A city full of rental spaces will not be much of a help to the cash-strapped dance community, says Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center. "I'm very concerned about the capital expansion and how much there is," he said. "All of this arts expansion is wonderful in the sense that the arts scene is thriving. But it's totally being done without planning."

What Kaiser fears is a mountain of resources locked up in real estate -- instead of being used to further the artistic product.

For his part, Barnes says he is eager to put the whole process of building a building -- the meetings on the price of steel, the constant fundraising -- behind him. "I would much rather be in the studio teaching and rehearsing and developing the company." But such is the price of progress.