Our "Welcome Back" concert Sept 12th was produced at the end of the first week of classes for the Fall 2009 session at the dance center. It was an amazing concert and exemplified the vision for the dance center.... to provide a venue for experimental dance theater to be produced and have audience feedback. It was an amazing concert and made me very proud of the work Scott and I have done along-side a multitude of volunteers, to make this possible.
The first week of classes showed us that we do not have the income from student fees to survive this session. If all our students were paying we would be fine. However, our studio has been hit very hard by the recession. Since about March we have been approached almost daily by a parent who have lost their job, been given furlows or reduced hours. Now, a class of nine students may have as few as one that is not on scholarship.
Our session is gearing up for performances of Night Visions on Oct 24 & 25 (Sat times: 3:00, 5:00 & 7:00
Sunday Times: 5:00 & 7:00). Then we have one more week of classes to end the session on Oct 31. Thus, Nov 1, the Day of the Dead, become our deadline for raising funds to cover the almost $10,000 a month it will take to keep us open.
I will keep this blog up to date on details. As I said at the concert when I announced our dire situation, we have done tremendous work and we are in this situation because we are a humanitarian driven, creative based, non-profit arts organization rather than a BUSINESS. Our decision in running the business have been made on strong spiritual and moral grounds. We have aimed to trian gracious, creative minds along side athletic dance artists. We are the only training of this sort in Contra Costa County. To find this sort of training you have to go to Berkeley or San Francisco. And to find this sort of training for children limits the pool to less than a handful of schools in the Bay Area.
With only Scott and I to run it, our energy has gone where the needs were immediate in order to assure the spirit and soul of the business was pure. We have tried very hard, at much personal cost, to keep the business alive long enough for the economy to recover. So we offer no apologies that we are not "good businessmen". But now, without the help of the community stepping forward to fund it, we will have to close.
We have the best team of faculty to date, each fully committed to creative-based training at the highest tenets of professional dance... for every age and level without prjudice for beginning dancers or bais toward advanced dancers. It's a rare gem. I have felt like we are "Picasso's of the dance world in Contra Costa County" in that we are ahead of our time. This training is what is offered in universty settings and where national standards in dance are taught... but California schools lag behind the national curve in the teaching of dance offering it as exercise rather than art. And, California studios offer dance as entertainment, competition or ELITE art, only for those with chosen body types and natural skill. We are completely different. I hope it is a service the community decides is improtant enough to fund. In a short time we will know.
I am at peace with whatever the community decides, and I think I can speak the same for Scott.
No comments:
Post a Comment