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

By Sarah Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 29, 2006

It looms in the distance as you head out of the Columbia Heights Metro station: the Dance Institute of Washington, a $5 million monument to an art form and an era. Forgive it for sticking out so baldly among the construction sites in a part of town once scarred by the 1968 riots. With its sharp midtown-Manhattan angles, this gleaming glass-and-steel ballet school is certainly the most stylish element of the stretch of 14th Street NW.

It is also the leading edge of a revamping of the local dance community, an expansion of studio and performance spaces taking root amid a real estate boom that's transforming Washington -- and transforming the arts scene. The theater community is already undergoing a facelift, with several new facilities open or under construction. Dance leaders may have come late to the party, with some spaces still in the planning stages, but starting this season, and especially in years to come, audiences will see fundamental changes.

Here's a glimpse of the dancegoer's future: There will be spanking-new theaters with airy foyers and comfy seating. Some will have cafes and shops in the lobby. Hand-in-hand with the new stages will come new studio space. If you're a dance student, or tempted to become one, there will be a head-spinning array of schools, including the Dance Institute, to choose from. Those staples of the dance studio of yore -- bad flooring, low ceilings and pillars in the middle of the floor -- will be a thing of the past, dance professionals predict.

In addition to the Dance Institute, consider these developments:

· With a grant from the D.C. government, Dance Place, the area's busiest dance presenter, is studying whether to tear down its converted garage in Brookland and replace it with a five-story condominium building with a theater, studio space and an eatery.

· CityDance Ensemble, a small performing troupe, is helping to renovate the old Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square downtown and plans to open a 150-seat dance stage there in February -- expanding upon its studios in North Bethesda's Music Center at Strathmore.

· Joy of Motion Dance Studios, with locations in Bethesda, Friendship Heights and Dupont Circle, has opened a fourth site with three studios in the new Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE.

· In Mount Rainier, Joe's Movement Emporium has purchased and renovated a warehouse with studio and performance space that nearly triples its current size, opening next month.

With the new development comes the promise of more performances, from both touring groups and local companies. Indeed, new spaces such as the Atlas and Strathmore are expanding offerings for the current dance season.

But all the bricks-and-mortar activity raises questions about whether there is enough funding to pay for the new theaters as well as to sustain the art needed to fill them. Some teachers wonder if their dance classes will fill up enough to pay the rent. Ultimately, will the new growth be a boon to the dance community -- perhaps the most economically fragile of the performing arts -- or will the costs prove too great?

Cautious optimism prevails among dance leaders. "You've got a moment in time here where the level of interest is growing and the level of opportunity, through theater space, is the highest it's ever been," said Paul Gordon Emerson, CityDance's director. "That's a very good confluence."

But progress comes with its own perils.

'Grow or Die'

For Fabian Barnes, founder and director of the Dance Institute of Washington, turning an overgrown vacant lot at 3400 14th St. NW into a $5 million arts archetype almost did him in.

"If I knew then what I know now, it probably would have stopped me" from buying the property, he said recently over lunch across the street from his building, which officially opens Thursday. "Not to say I'm not happy I did it, but everything comes with a price. My price was sleepless nights and high blood pressure."

Barnes, a former member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, started his institute in 1987 as a summer ballet program for underprivileged children. A decade later he was running a year-round school, though it remained a shoestring affair housed until now in rental studios in some of the poorest parts of town. In 2000 he was awarded one of Oprah Winfrey's "Angel Network" awards, and word of his organization grew. But his square footage didn't. He had to turn kids away because he didn't have room for them all.

The impermanence of his school made fundraising difficult, Barnes said. He was in constant fear of losing support. Also, his most advanced dancers were clamoring for him to launch a professional company, for which he needed rehearsal space, a stage -- and an audience.

He felt he had no choice but to risk it all by expanding: "It was either grow or die."

Five years ago, with a dancer's instinct for dramatic presentation and sight lines, Barnes scouted out a narrow patch of long-abandoned property and bid his future on it. He got the lot for $100,000; the bulk of his fundraising went into the construction of an odd-shaped structure (the facade includes 20 corners) housing three studios, dressing rooms, offices, a day-care center -- and a big street-side display case where Barnes will hang posters promoting Washington Reflections, his new company of 12 paid dancers.

Twice a year, he plans to rent the 285-seat, newly renovated Tivoli Theater, home to GALA Hispanic Theatre, which is just down the street from the Dance Institute. That smallish space is essential to the success of his troupe, he says; it will allow longer runs -- perhaps a week of performances, instead of the one- or two-night norm -- giving word-of-mouth publicity a chance to build. And, he hopes, developing his audience.

Joy and Worry

Like Barnes, Douglas Yeuell expanded his lovingly built but fragile empire only after frequent panic attacks. After 14 years as the artistic and executive director of Joy of Motion Dance Center, one of the area's most prominent training grounds in contemporary dance, he was still just a tenant, renting studio space in highly desirable areas. With condos and retail chains increasingly eating up the square footage around him, Yeuell started to fear losing one or all of his leases.

"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

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.