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Photo courtesy of Jackson Hole Center for the Arts |
CommentsA Stage for All Seasons
It's time for a cultural center for people to meet, share, learn, and enjoy all things creative
Published: September 18, 2007by Rose Sciaroni
As you might have seen by the busy music calendar, there have been some spectacular shows with world-class artists this summer. Besides the year-round stages at casinos, several community stages crop up on beaches, golf courses, resorts, and parks. For example, the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival stage hosts more than just a season of Shakespeare plays, they also bring in orchestras, dance performances and big name performers – all with a spectacular backdrop of the lake, the mountains and the stars as well as the comfort of a sand-dune seat.
As summer comes to a close, there are still a plethora of concerts and events on the Tahoe-Truckee calendar. But the stages that have cropped up outside have a short season here as the nights will soon be cold and the venues of summer give way to winter recreation. Concerts will then take place inside, but where? While the bars, restaurants and casinos in the area all nourish the music lover during the winter with food, drinks and music, there is no large-scale venue either for big performers or for local artists.
Further, going to concerts, art shows, and festivals during the summer provides more than entertainment: It is also a platform for education and community involvement. In a community that is mostly built around individual sports (which can be gatherings of sorts but, let’s face it, there are no friends on powder days), where the most common social interaction in the winter involves talking about the weather and yesterday’s turns, it seems time for a cultural center for people to meet, share, learn, and enjoy all that both the creative people in the area and outside have to offer.
In a survey done by the Truckee Donner Parks and Recreation Department (TDRPD), the number one most requested thing from the community was an arts and culture center. For this to happen, three things need to be in place. The first is a stable nonprofit arts market to make a facility viable. The second and third are land and money. After feeling out the artistic community, TDRPD decided that they could build a 350-seat theater. The theater would provide space for dance, music, theater and possibly some wall space for art, but what about rehearsal space – as renting a theater for multiple rehearsals can become costly – or class space and artist studios?
To analyze these questions, and, especially, to advocate arts, the Arts and Culture Council of Truckee Tahoe (ACCTT) was created. The council consists of several stakeholders such as the Kidzone Museum, InnerRhythms, Sierra College, the Town of Truckee, and the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association – all of whom already have viable programs and would mutually benefit from a cultural center. As Kidzone Museum director and ACCTT member Carol Meagher points out, it is more economical for an entire community of artists to share space, since they could collectively research and receive grants, share marketing, and share fundraisers. It is also more environmentally savvy because it takes up less space and consolidates the use of natural resources.
Meagher also points to timing: “There is no later. People won’t go for it. We want to do it right and think about what the needs for the community are now.” With so much development in the last few years and now, it seems a perfect time to fit an arts center into the landscape. The community is also growing culturally as we speak with ground being broken on a new Sierra College campus – an attraction which will further the artistic and intellectual possibilities (read: stable nonprofit arts market) in the area.
When asked why an arts and cultural center is needed, Alanna Hughes, an artist at Riverside Studios and an ACCTT member said that, “It would give the kids and other people in our community a place to perform in a top-notch performing venue and not a gymnasium, but someplace where there are appropriate sound systems. It’s the real thing as opposed to a temporary fix.”
For any performing artist, but especially if you’re a young performer, knowing that you’re on a high-quality stage and knowing that it’s the same stage that great artists have used is an incredibly sense of accomplishment and inspiration. When I was a teenager, I spent a couple of summers playing my violin in Michigan and had the chance to perform with symphony orchestras on the same stages that billed artists such as Ani Difranco, Lyle Lovett, Faith Hill, Diana Krall and Jane Monheit. Whether I was at the same caliber as the artists didn’t matter; to stand in the same place, with the same acoustics and the same rows of seats in front of me as professional artists, gave me a sense of where I wanted to go.
The center would also be a boon to the community as a source of revenue. Quality programming would draw in second homeowners and tourists and their money. Being a four-season center, it would help invigorate the slow season for local businesses, restaurants, and smaller venues.
Models for the center include the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts (see photo above and description below), as well as centers in Beaver Creek and Aspen. The idea is to have an adaptable arts center with an acoustically sound concert hall, a theater, or even space for a film festival, as the nucleus. Then working art space for classes such as painting, pottery, dance and music would wrap around the center space. There would be a gallery where goods made in the workspaces could be sold and perhaps even space for food and drinks.
These are all possibilities, but in the meantime, there is still much research to be done, connections to be made and grants to be proposed. To help further this endeavor, ACCTT is putting on a fundraiser, with the theme “A Taste of Asia,” on September 27 at Dragonfly featuring a four-course meal, entertainment and arts and ski auction. Contact Dragonfly, 530-587-0557. Also, look for acctt.org, coming soon.
As summer ends and stages pack up, let’s all hope that one of these days, the fun, education and artistry abounding in the Tahoe summers don’t have to follow the seasons.
The Center for the Arts in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a hub of creativity and collaboration. Opened in 2004 with the completion of the 41,000 square foot Arts & Education Pavilion, the Center is now home and host to 20 local and regional non-profit arts and higher education organizations that have their own studios, classrooms and performance spaces under the same roof.
The Performing Arts Pavilion, opened in June 2007, features an award-winning, flexible 525-seat theater with 200 orchestra level seats and 300 balcony level seats, a music center, theater rehearsal space and spacious lobby. This new theater, the first proscenium theater with a full-height fly loft in Jackson Hole, is home to Off Square Theatre Company, Jackson’s only year-round professional theater company, and a new downtown Jackson venue able to host performances never before seen in Jackson Hole.
Housing the community’s new theater, its art organizations and non profits in a single, centralized building creates an atmosphere of collaboration and inspiration for the arts in Jackson Hole. The synergy of resident organizations, the theater and hundreds of visitors bustling through the Center for the Arts each day breeds a high-energy powerhouse for the local arts community and the many visitors that come to Jackson Hole each year.
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