Dance on Display

By: Jacqueline Houton

Photo Credit: Vital Albuquerque, AIA

If you’ve spent time in Central Square, you’ve likely heard the drum beats that rumble down from 536 Mass. Ave., reverberating for a block in either direction. But if you’re not among the 1,200 dancers who visit the Dance Complex each week, you may never have stepped foot in the upstairs studios and seen the source of those sounds. “In the 24 years of the Dance Complex, you always heard the drums above you,” says executive director Peter DiMuro. “But if you weren’t savvy enough to go up the stairs, you never saw the dance.”

That’s changing with the debut of Studio 7, a street-level rehearsal, performance and event space offering three huge windows with a view of the action. The 1,800-square-foot addition will host cabaret-style performances, accommodating projects that might not suit the Julie Ince Thompson Theatre upstairs, as well as gallery showings and other events that bridge art forms. “We’ve been kind of siloed in dance, and I think 20 years ago we needed to claim dance as our own space,” DiMuro says. “Now it feels like it’s ‘dance and,’ not ‘dance or.’ ”

In 2016, Studio 7 will also generate new programming possibilities for the Dance Complex, which already hosts 90 classes a week in dozens of disciplines, from ballet and bachata to bhangra and breakdancing. “The most obvious thing is that we’re now able to offer programs to people with disabilities because we’re more accessible than we have been. Although we have a lift up to our second floor, this allows people to wheel right in if that’s their mode of transportation,” DiMuro says. “We’re also looking at intergenerational programming where kids 15 and under can work with people 50 and over.”

Unveiled in mid-December, the renovations to the 1884 building were made possible by a $500,000 grant from the Barr Foundation—a major windfall for the Dance Complex’s slim staff of seven part-timers—along with funds from an Indiegogo campaign that proffered perks like stage makeup tutorials and wedding dance lessons. DiMuro hopes the finished product will provide a portal that welcomes newbies as well as dance devotees. “I want to encourage everybody to feel comfortable coming to dance,” he says. “Yes, I can come see a performance, or yes, I can be a professional dancer and go on that track. But I think dance is just a healthy, balancing, evolutionary thing for the everyday person to do. And that’s what we want this space to allow.”

Cultivating Creativity

By: Alexandra Cavallo

As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but rarely has that adage rang as true as in the case of the Somerville ARTfarm for Social Innovation. Envisioned as a self-sustaining creative commons dedicated to fostering collaboration between local artists, entrepreneurs and green-minded organizations, ARTfarm found an unexpected home in a 2.2-acre lot off of McGrath Highway that previously housed a waste-transfer site. Soon, says Somerville Arts Council executive director Gregory Jenkins, the Poplar Street spot that once held tons of trash could be home to shipping containers housing studio, gallery and performance spaces, as well as a black box theater, community gardens, greenhouses and an entryway installation by Somerville cut-paper artist Randal Thurston.

The ARTfarm concept started to take root when Mayor Joseph Curtatone approached the SAC after the site became available in 2013. “He just sort of said, ‘Why don’t you guys do something with this?’ ” Jenkins says. ‘Take it over, activate it, make something, do something.’ ” So Jenkins and fellow council members got together for a series of “visioning sessions” with the Brickbottom community, creating a wish list for the location. They’ve since secured more than $900,000 in grants and other funding from sources including ArtPlace America and MassDevelopment. Moreover, Jenkins says the city is “pretty positively committed” to another $450,000.

The team hopes to break ground this spring and be operational by summer. But in the meantime, they’ve already been partnering with local arts organizations to host public events on the site, including last year’s Big Tiny House festival, Starlab’s annual music festival, Project MUM and a number of dance parties.

“So, it’s being activated, but the whole plan is to try and figure out how to build physical studio
spaces there using shipping containers,” Jenkins says. The hope is to allow local artists and creators to lease them as studio, gallery or performance spaces at very affordable prices. “We just need to break even and make sure it’s self-sustaining,” he adds. “So the goal is that we can lease these studio spaces for dirt cheap, which people are clamoring for.”

Artists will be able to apply for ARTfarm space, and Jenkins hopes to curate an eclectic community of tenants whose work will serve the neighborhood. “The other thing that we can do is, if we charge less [for the space], we could ask, ‘What are you going to do to activate the courtyard of that space?’ ” he says. “So we could create interesting curations where, by not charging as much money, we can expect them to have more public programming. The question is, now, how do we develop a site where the public engages, but the arts community has a stake in it and has a home there, so they can do this work? And we’re positive that can happen.”

Art Nouveau

By: Jacqueline Houton

There are a lot of new faces on the local museum scene. We got to know three of these pros—and got a look at what’s in store for 2016.

Start date: December 2015

Previous gig: Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Predecessor: Nobody, exactly—this is a new position for the Rose, which has had museum director Christopher Bedford, a curator-at-large and faculty members tackling curatorial duties.

Resolution for the new year: “I’ll be working on a thorough review of the collection over the next year, with an eye to a large-scale collection presentation in the near future, something that we all want to see happen very soon and ideally in a new, expanded setting,” Conaty says. “I want the Rose to be known as the key institution in New England for art since the mid-20th century.”

One 2016 must-see: “An important retrospective of the under-recognized New York-based artist and writer Rosalyn Drexler, whose bold and sometimes biting collages and paintings of the 1960s will be a new discovery for many.” Conaty calls Rosalyn Drexler: Who Does She Think She Is?, opening on Feb. 12, a “great example of how reinvestigations into canonical movements like Pop continue to reveal fascinating figures whose contributions are due a more careful look.”

Photo Credit: Stephanie Berger

P

Start date: January 2016

Previous gig: Director of Collections at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York

Predecessor: Anne Hawley, who steps down at the end of 2015 after 26 years as director

Resolution for the new year: “My first goal is to get settled and focus on meeting people,” says Fogelman, who spoke with us in December, shortly before moving to Boston. “I am so excited to work with all of my talented new colleagues at the museum, and our trustees, overseers and members. I am also looking forward to connecting with all the other cultural and public institutions in Boston as I embrace my new city.” She’s not unfamiliar with the area, however: Fogelman worked at Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum as director of education and interpretation from 2007 to 2009.

One 2016 must-see: “A special exhibition called Off the Wall: Gardner and her Masterpieces [opening] in early March. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see some of the masterpieces from the collection up close and personal and in a new light in the Hostetter Gallery in the new wing. The truly exceptional quality and importance of the Gardner’s paintings will really shine through. Very exciting indeed.”

Photo Credit: Liza Voll Photography

Start date: March 2015

Previous gig: Curator in the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Predecessor: Helen Molesworth, who left for LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art last year

Resolution for the new year: “2016 is an exciting year for the ICA, as we will be celebrating 10 years on the waterfront and 10 years of being a collecting museum,” Respini says. “Although we are an old institution, we are still in our infancy in terms of our collecting life. On this occasion, this summer we will present an ambitious exhibition drawn entirely from the collection to celebrate a decade of collecting. My goal is to continue to expand ICA’s collection so that we can make important contemporary art works available to our audiences, permanently.”

One 2016 must-see: “A large-scale wall tableau of cut-paper silhouettes by the New York-based artist Kara Walker, which speaks to the history of race in America, a topic that is very relevant and urgent today. I am also delighted to introduce the beautiful and contemplative photographic work of Boston-born artist Liz Deschenes in her first-ever museum survey exhibition. Both will open this summer.”

Plaza Vision

By: Matt Martinelli

Photo Credit: Utile

It’s officially four more years for the popular arts and event space Lawn on D. But could City Hall Plaza be following in its footsteps?

City Hall workers took baby steps toward that goal this past summer when they rolled out turf and added Adirondack chairs and lawn games to the plaza, dubbing it the “Front Lawn”—perhaps a not-so-subtle reference to the South Boston spot.

“It was really surprising that something so simple could actually draw people to City Hall,” says Tricia Lyons, city director of public facilities.

“Everyone at City Hall who’s involved with activating City Hall Plaza was just watching and learning with what was happening at Lawn on D,” adds Julie Burros, the city’s chief of arts and culture. “What was amazing was the variety of things that they engaged in on a consistent and ongoing business. There was music, visual art, food and lots of things.”

When it opened nearly 50 years ago, City Hall Plaza was intended to be an active civic space, modeled after the plaza in Siena, Italy. That never materialized, but there are renewed hopes given the success of the Front Lawn and three years of hosting the Boston Calling music festival. More answers will come in the fall of 2016, when the Rethink City Hall project ends its yearlong study and begins to implement a plan for the plaza.

“One thing that’s really important as we move forward is flexibility,” Lyons says of the Rethink City Hall group, which includes city workers as well as landscape architects and engineers. “We want to figure out the best way to allow for large gatherings or bring it down to a manageable level where people will want to come to either see interesting art pieces or just come and have lunch.”

Financing and weight restrictions on the space above the T will likely limit any large development on the plaza, but even basic improvements could go a long way toward luring more arts events. “One thing we’ve found is there’s no infrastructure on the plaza to accommodate programming, from something small to something big,” says senior project manager Maureen Anderson. “Right now, anybody who wants to come into the plaza has to bring everything with them, including sound, power, audio.”

The makeover for City Hall Plaza is expected to be the first part of a larger vision for City Hall that could include more space for cultural programming inside the concrete behemoth as well as on the plaza. The hope is to draw more daily visitors to the area and use the Front Lawn to take advantage of the uptick in pedestrian traffic once the Government Center MBTA stop reopens this spring.

“We’re in a very exciting time in that the mayor is very supportive of art throughout the city, and even in a public context,” Anderson says. “And we’re excited here to begin to understand what the opportunities are with that.”

Stage Whispers

By: Matt Martinelli

This fall, drama in Boston’s theater scene grabbed bigger headlines than some of the shows. In a matter of weeks, Emerson closed the struggling Colonial Theatre amid a campus space crunch, the Wang and Shubert Theatres announced that Citigroup’s sponsorship would end in 2016, the Boston Lyric Opera said it would leave the Shubert, and BU announced it would sell the BU Theatre, home to the Huntington Theatre Company. “It seemed to be one story, but in fact, they’re very, very different stories,” says Huntington managing director Michael Maso. “They did happen at the same time, and I think it’s confusing, but they’re very different issues.”

The city is currently undertaking a study on the need for performance and rehearsal space in Boston, expected for completion in the spring. In the meantime, we chatted with some major players about their needs and possible solutions that might be put in motion in 2016.

The Wang, Shubert & Colonial Theatres

The loss of a title sponsor was a hit that Joe Spaulding, president and CEO of the Citi Wang and Shubert Theatres, says he saw coming. Citi signed on to a sponsorship 10 years ago as it opened retail banks in the Boston market, but that sponsorship will soon end as Citi closes its retail banks in the area—a move that clearly has nothing to do with Boston’s theater scene. Spaulding is confident a new sponsor will be put in place in 2016: “We are in talks with many different organizations, both locally and globally.” The greater issue, he says, is adapting programming. The Shubert will fill the BLO void in part with shows from the Fiddlehead Theatre Company. Spaulding and Maso say they’re in talks to have the Shubert house some Huntington productions in the short term if needed. The theaters have also been generating revenue by hosting wedding receptions and events such as a Lexus car show. Bullish on the theater scene, Spaulding hopes  the Colonial Theatre—which had hosted Citi Performing Arts programming—will retain performance space after Emerson renovates the building. (A task force for the project will make recommendations in March.) “I think once the campus is where they need it,” Spaulding says, “we might have an opportunity to operate that theater again as a theater.”

The Huntington Theatre Company

Photo Credit: Nile Hawver / Nile Scott Shots

Maso is firm on the future of the Huntington in the BU Theatre: “The Huntington is still pursuing ways to stay in the theater in the long run. That’s probably in partnership with a development partner once the sale process is completed,” he says. “The priority has to be a way to work with us, BU and another partner to make sure that we stay in the space.” Maso hopes to renovate the building, creating a larger lobby, a restaurant space and function rooms. He envisions a theater operating with the same model as the Huntington-run Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, where the Huntington rents out space to smaller arts groups. Any renovation would displace the Huntington for a couple years, a time period when they could perform at the Shubert or find other theater space, hopefully avoiding bumping smaller groups from Calderwood. But what if the building is sold to a developer uninterested in preserving the theater? For now Maso isn’t talking about a Plan B, but he’s hoping BU will make a decision on the sale this spring, so Plan A—or any Plan B—can soon commence.

Boston Lyric Opera

BLO general and artistic director Esther Nelson rattles off a number of reasons for leaving the Shubert after 18 years: acoustics, seat comfort, squeezed lobby space, technical challenges backstage, high venue fees for single tickets. She also knows exactly what the BLO wants from a future home: modern amenities, a large lobby that includes cafes to serve patrons, a location with parking and public-transit access, 1,400 to 1,600 seats, an orchestra pit that accommodates 120 musicians and a stage large enough for a 60- to 80-member chorus, 20 soloists and sets. But those ambitions will be tough to realize. Nelson knows she needs to find partners, since the BLO couldn’t be the sole tenant of a space that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, so she’s been in contact with the city as well as the ballet, theater companies and musical organizations. “Most of them,” she says, “have expressed an interest in a facility that’s suitable for local producers,” and not geared toward large touring productions. She thinks the flexibility to, say, close off spaces to turn a 1,500-seat opera venue into a 500-seat theater could be key. “It might not be just one building. It might be a combination of refurbishing existing buildings, adjusting them, adapting them. Or it could be a new building or several buildings,” Nelson continues. “It’s a good time to address the long-term and the immediate needs. … I see multiple solutions over multiple steps in the coming years.”

A Crafty Move

By: Alexandra Cavallo

When the Boston Redevelopment Authority announced it was looking for nonprofit tenants for a new 20,000-square-foot cultural space on the rapidly evolving Boston waterfront—and subsidizing the rent—the 118-year-old organization jumped at the chance, as did semifinalists the Celebrity Series and the Steinway Society. But the Society of Arts and Crafts, which has called a small, two-floor space on Newbury Street home for about 40 years, ultimately scored the spacious new digs and will be moving in early this summer. Communications manager Tess Mattern says that opportunities for new programming are huge.

“We’ve been really hoping to expand our retail and exhibition programs, and this is going to give us the perfect opportunity to do that. We will also be getting a multipurpose room so we can increase our educational offerings,” Mattern says. “We’re very excited to have artists come in to do demonstrations, have lectures…. And it’s enough space that we can have an artist-in-residency program and a craft library. There are just so many possibilities for us there, and we are really going to make good use of the space.”

That space extends outside, where the society hopes to host public sculpture, benches designed by noted furniture makers, craft fairs and other programming. But Mattern says the excitement isn’t just about the new space; it’s also about getting to know—and getting known around—their new ’hood. “The neighborhood is really interesting because it’s always been a strong neighborhood for the arts. The Fort Point artists have always been there … and then with the move of the ICA [from downtown], the neighborhood became more of a focal point,” she says. “We definitely see ourselves as an organization who wants to partner with our neighbors there and really join forces and highlight the work of the Fort Point artists.”

To that end, the society already has its first show for the new space in the works. “It’s going to be titled Radius, and it’s going to be an exhibit that is specifically of artists within a 2- to 5-mile radius of our new location,” Mattern says, “so that we introduce ourselves to the neighborhood and make friends.”

The Society of Arts and Crafts isn’t the only arts group expanding its programming and square footage in South Boston. Youth nonprofit Artists for Humanity is more than halfway through fundraising for a $28 million expansion to its 100 W. Second St. home. “Someone recently said to me, ‘So, you’re a faith-based organization after all!’” laughs executive/artistic director Susan Rodgerson about the expansion, which will add 52,000 square feet. Slated to break ground this spring, the addition will allow AFH to double the number of teen artist employees to 500, host pop-ups in partnership with local businesses and open a gallery, a store, a cafe and a makerspace for use by the public on a membership basis. “I really think it’s going to be a great hub for people who work and live here.”

One for the Books

By: Sarah Hagman

Bookworms rejoice! The Boston Public Library’s central branch will mark a new chapter this summer when the three-year renovation of its 1970s concrete hunk comes to an end. “The existing Johnson building wasn’t being well utilized,” admits interim president David Leonard. But with the major overhaul, it’ll “really be the true complement to the McKim building that it was always intended to be.”

The biggest aim, Leonard says, is to reconnect the library to the neighborhood and the city at large, pointing to the exterior’s soaring new windows—19 feet high and 55 feet wide—as the most visible indicator. Inside, lit lovers will find a new 4,500-square-foot retail space that’ll be home to WGBH’s first satellite studio. “There’s a real connection between the dissemination of information through a not-for-profit news organization in the same way that you get that in a library,” Leonard says of the Allston-based media outlet, which will host recordings, live shows and other to-be-determined public programming. Rounding out the space is the Newsfeed Cafe, a new spot for coffee, breakfast, lunch and small plates from the Catered Affair, as well as a designated area for displaying new library materials with a browser-friendly “bookstore feel.” The setup speaks volumes to the mix of tradition and innovation hoped for at the library, an institution that’s been a trailblazer since its 1848 founding as the first large free municipal library.

“The modern library for the 21^st century really has to continue to be responsive to the needs of the patrons,” Leonard says. “As their needs and demands evolve, we have to continue to evolve too.”

A Breath of Fresh AIR

By: Meghan Kavanaugh

Photo Credit: Liz Nofziger: Melissa Blackall Photography

City Hall may not be the most aesthetically pleasing edifice in the city, but a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and partnership with MassArt is ensuring that what goes on inside the building this coming year will be a different story. Ten artists have been selected for the preliminary stages of an inaugural artist-in-residence program, Boston AIR. Three of them will ultimately earn $20,000 each for a six-month residency based on proposals created with liaisons from 12 city departments, presented to the public on Jan. 23 and implemented sometime after the three artists take office in mid-February.

Chief of arts and culture Julie Burros says the effort both supports the city’s artists and brings “new ideas and creative thinking and creative problem solving from far outside government into government to look for new solutions.” But as Boston Art Commission director and Boston AIR project manager Karin Goodfellow points out, the two groups may have more in common than one might imagine: The first meeting drove home how many municipal employees are also dancers, singers, painters and writers. “Something that was unexpected,” Goodfellow says, “was just seeing how humanizing it was to even have a conversation about art with people at the city.”

As for the artists, contenders currently preparing proposals include former Boston Center for the Arts resident Liz Nofziger, who brought her Bounce ping-pong tables to the BCA Plaza in 2014, Shaw Pong Liu, who organized a 2014 Water Graffiti for Peace project in Chinatown, and Pat Falco, the artist behind the colorful Untitled (Coming Soon) murals on Georges Island last summer, along with seven other local talents. Three of them— Juan Obndo, Melissa Nussbaum Freeman and Roberto Mighty—paused from their preparations to give us a sneak peek at the thought process behind their proposals.

Queen Bee

By: Meghan Kavanaugh

Photo Credit: Suhayl Azan

Toni Bee is back in office. After serving as Cambridge’s Poet Populist from 2011 to 2013 (as the first woman to fill the post), Bee has begun her three-month term as the city’s first Poetry Ambassador. The new Cambridge Arts program will see ambassadors change with the seasons in 2016, and each will organize community events and outreach. Bee helped us become well-versed on the subject.

What kind of poetry do you like to read and write? I like all types, but I love free verse. I’m such a poetry nerd. … As long as you’re telling the truth with your emotions, that’s what’s up.

Besides organizing the program’s inaugural poetry event in December, what do you have planned? I want to have sessions I’ll set up at a cafe, and just open free time for people to talk about poetry. Come, talk, I’ll look at your work and we can just connect that way. … The youth have a lot to say in Cambridge. I’m really interested in what the teens are doing, too.

You’re a founder of Black Lives Matter in Cambridge. How do the arts play into activism? Poetry and the arts connect people through emotion. The current temperature of this country, we’re all going through it. Whether it be Muslim, whether it be black-skinned or brown-skinned people…my thing is write it down, get it out and share it. … I think being Poet Populist of Cambridge was the only way that I was able to march in the streets because Cambridge gave me a voice, or the people of Cambridge gave me a voice. So the Poetry Ambassador program is a way for me to continue to tell people, “Get your emotions out. Share it with others who are feeling something.”

Do you think the other ambassadors will be able to share their diverse experiences? I do. I’m very glad that there will be other poetry ambassadors because we can get the flavor of the city. We’ve got tech companies; we’ve got very poor. Girl, I’m just getting off food stamps myself. You can quote me on that! Seriously, we go from high to low. Maybe a block away from me, there are million-dollar people in million-dollar homes, and I’m the former Poet Populist and I’m low-income. Everybody in that range has something to share. The million-dollar person will shake my hand and say, “I like that poem,” and the poor person will shake my hand and say, “I like that poem.” Emotions cover it all.