Tag Archives: arts

Theater kids push back on Seattle U’s big plans for new art museum to replace Lee Center

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(Image: Lee Center for the Arts)

(Image: Lee Center for the Arts)

Big plans for Seattle University to create a new art museum along 12th Ave are exciting for the school but some of those closest to the school’s art scenes are rallying to save the much-loved and heavily used building it would replace — the Lee Center for the Arts.

It has been a busy 12 months for Seattle U, the 134-year-old private Jesuit school on Capitol Hill’s southern edge serving approximately 7,200 students.

In December, the school announced it would take over Cornish College of the Arts, the much smaller, 111-year-old private art school in the Denny Triangle neighborhood downtown. Last summer, property developer Dick Hedreen announced he would donate to Seattle University his family’s $300-million collection of more than 200 pieces of art (from Andy Warhol to Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg to Willem de Kooning, and more), in addition to $25 million in seed funding to create a new Seattle University Museum of Art (SUMA).

“We’re still working out logistics of the museum’s location, but it will likely be on a plot abutting 12th Avenue next to the Lee Center for the Arts,” a Seattle University spokesperson told CHS last year when Hedreen’s sizable donation was announced.

Those logistics are a little clearer now, as planning is underway for SUMA’s construction to begin in the summer of 2026, Seattle University told CHS this week. The new museum will replace the Lee Center. Continue reading →

A decade of development, affordability, and theater at Capitol Hill’s 12th Ave Arts

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(Image: CHS)

By Domenic Strazzabosco

A decade ago, 88 affordable apartment units above office space for nonprofits, and a street level theater complex opened along 12th Ave on land that had been a barbed wire-fenced parking lot for the East Precinct. While the affordable apartments and offices have become part of 12th Ave’s fabric, the stages of the 12th Ave Arts development are ready to grow after a challenging ten years.

Black Box, formed to manage the building’s two theater spaces, is looking forward to what comes next as 12th Ave Arts emerges from the pandemic.

“The nature of any kind of performing art is that a lot of it is developed in rehearsal, and rehearsal happens right before you go,” said administrative director Greg Carter.

Though he’s booked out the spaces months in advance, Carter doesn’t know all that much of what’s going to be performed than someone browsing the listings would. That’s part of what he loves about working in the space.

What’s exciting about how Black Box rents out its spaces, often up to a year and a half in advance, is that each production can be whatever the creators want it to be, so long as it can fit in the room. There are three resident production companies — Strawberry Theatre Workshop, Washington Ensemble Theatre, and Velocity Dance — that are guaranteed more time throughout the year. An array of other companies produce the rest of the performances, some repeat, some one-time renters. Velocity Dance became a formal partner last year after moving from across the street during the pandemic. Continue reading →

With dancing, events, and a new name, group steps forward with new plan for Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom

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(Image: Century Ballroom)

Wilder, Kuperman, and Cockrill — You can watch the announcement here

There is new hope for a new dance at Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom.

Two months after announcing they would not renew their lease and were ready to end the three decade run of the popular dance venue inside Capitol Hill’s Odd Fellows Hall, Century’s Hallie Kuperman and Alison Cockrill have announced a group has stepped forward with a plan to continue the space’s long history of social dance while stabilizing the business.

“When we reached out to the universe and said, if there’s a way to save this space as a dancing space, let it come forward, and this person came forward,” Kuperman said in this week’s announcement.

The group led by Seattle event producer Eliza Wilder says it is negotiating a new lease for the building’s Grand Ballroom and West Hall and plans to fill the venue with dances and classes while growing the event space rental component of the business.

“I’ve been dancing at Century Ballroom for 15 years. It was the first place I went dancing when I moved here as a fresh-eyed 18-year-old,” Wilder said.

In the announcement, Wilder said she had been searching for a home for an event business — but never thought she would take on something at Century’s scale. Continue reading →

STG at Kerry Hall already in motion as Seattle Theater Group makes immediate use of its $6M Capitol Hill acquisition

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(Image: CHS)

The group is calling its new venue STG at Kerry Hall

By Domenic Strazzabosco

After acquiring Kerry Hall from Cornish College of the Arts last November, Seattle Theater Group — the nonprofit that manages The Paramount, The Moore, and The Neptune — has quickly made itself at home in the neighborhood.

Groups and organizations are already utilizing the historic space and a full slate of programming is expected to be active as STG at Kerry Hall fully ramps up by summer.

At a building tour on Wednesday, STG’s Director of Education & Community Engagement Marisol Sanchez Best described crying from excitement over what the building would provide. She noted arriving that morning and feeling the space alive with the sounds of dancers and musicians practicing.

At the event, rooms were occupied by artists including Grammy-winning musician and decades-long Cornish professor Jovino Santos Neto’s trio practicing, as well as Mark Haim directing a large group of dancers, and Bailadores de Bronce, a folklorico group and longtime STG partner, practicing in the hall.

Nate Dwyer, head of STG, described acquiring the space as presenting the “awesome privilege to steward the building for another generation.” He said Wednesday that though some work had to be done to update and maintain the space, STG was able to begin using it almost immediately. Within just a few weeks of acquiring the building, STG programs began operating out of the rooms, and by summer, they hope to have full programming available to the public. Continue reading →

You can be a Capitol Hill community producer and boost BIPOC and queer filmmakers behind Reckless Spirits

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A scene from RECKLESS SPIRITS

Hua

Despite the ongoing closure of the historic Egyptian Theatre, the film community on Capitol Hill continues to flourish and create as local community figure and filmmaker Vee Hua launches short film Reckless Spirits.

This “metaphysical, multilingual POC best friend comedy,” also serves as proof-of-concept and first 12 minutes of a proposed full-length feature film. Hua and their team are in the throes of crowdfunding for the project, with hopes to raise $100,000 by December 22nd.

The film is a “hilarious, trippy ride,” said Hua, Director, Co-writer, and Producer of the project. Incorporating inspiration from media like “Broad City” and Everything Everywhere All at Once, the film follows a pair of best friends who are led into “swirl-world,” of “ancestor spirits, physics, and a cult leader”, according to the project’s kickstarter page.

The main characters are “a gender-fluid Latine performance artist and a neurotic Asian American therapist,” inspired by the co-writers, Hua and Lisa Sanaye Dring. “We wanted to see characters that we felt related to us and offer representation that we haven’t seen haven’t seen on-screen before,” said Hua.

The film has “anti-colonial, anti-capitalist undercurrents” and explores themes of spirituality, particularly the tension between belief and the capitalist messaging that comes with modern, commercialized spirituality, said Hua. Continue reading →

As Seattle U continues to grow along 12th Ave including plans for new art museum, school will expand to South Lake Union with Cornish College takeover

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(Image: Cornish College of the Arts)

Seattle University will take over the Cornish College of the Arts in a agreement announced Thursday.

“Seattle University joining forces with Cornish will combine two storied Seattle institutions of higher learning into one,” Seattle U president Eduardo Peñalver said in a statement. “It will create incredible new opportunities for our students to expand their educational horizons and for faculty to pursue innovative interdisciplinary collaborations. This is definitely a case of ‘one plus one equals three.’”

The “modern, progressive, and global Jesuit Catholic university” on the southern edge of Capitol Hill says it is working on a final deal to acquire the college as it undertakes “a thorough due diligence review of Cornish’s finances, holdings and assets, operations, compliance and legal obligations.”

The takeover comes as Cornish officials have said enrollment at the arts college has continued to fade, falling to just under 500 students. Last month, CHS reported on Cornish’s sale of its final physical connection to Capitol Hill as it agreed to sell the historic Kerry Hall studio and performance space to Seattle Theater Group for $6 million.

The addition of Cornish to the Seattle U family won’t change the direction of the arts college’s hopes for growth in South Lake Union. The schools said Thursday the plan is “continuing to educate students at its South Lake Union campus.” Continue reading →

Seattle Theater Group — operator of the Paramount, Moore, and Neptune — buys Capitol Hill’s Kerry Hall in $6M deal

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(Image: Cornish College of the Arts)

Screenshot

The nonprofit that operates the Paramount, the Moore and the Neptune is buying Capitol Hill’s Kerry Hall but the 103-year-old Cornish College property just off North Broadway won’t become the latest addition the Seattle Theater Group’s roster of live music and performance venues.

An announcement from Cornish on the sale said STG “will use the building to grow and expand its community-centered arts programming.”

STG says AileyCamp, a summer dance-focused day camp provided to middle school-aged kids at no charge and supported by corporate and foundation sponsors as well as King County arts grants, will expand into the E Roy studio and performance hall.

The organization will share “a detailed business plan in the new year,” the announcement said.

King County records shows STG paid Cornish $6 million in the transaction recorded Friday.

Students rallied for the building earlier this year (Image: @save_kerry_hall)

CHS reported here as Kerry Hall hit the Capitol Hill real estate market in April. At the time of Cornish’s announcement that it was finally preparing to sever its final ties to its birth neighborhood and fully move its campus to South Lake Union, the arts school did not include a price for the E Roy property and three-story building just off Broadway within the Harvard-Belmont Landmark District. Continue reading →

‘Time to let that go’ — Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom will close in 2025

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(Image: Century Ballroom)

Century Ballroom’s 28th anniversary on Capitol Hill next year will be its last.

Century’s Hallie Kuperman and Alison Cockrill say the ballroom, an arts and cultural center that has bridged any gaps between Capitol Hill’s communities with Tango, Bachata, Lindy Hop, Hip Hop, and West Coast Swing since 1997 is at the end of its latest lease. It will not be renewed.

“One of the things that is true is that the business — as this particular dream of ours — isn’t sustainable. It’s nobody’s fault. It is the way it is. We are very successful,” Kuperman said in a social media video with Cockrill posted earlier this month. “We are one of the biggest organizations, if not the biggest organization across the United States that we know of, that does all we do — only dance — with a bar and restaurant in this beautiful venue. And that’s our dream. And we’ve lived our dream for 28 years.”

It is “time to let that go,” Kuperman said. Continue reading →

Capitol Hill’s Egyptian closed for ‘foreseeable future’ after burst pipe damages building home to 108-year-old theater — UPDATE

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(Image: SIFF)

(Image: SIFF)

Capitol Hill’s art house film future is murkier than ever as the silver screen at E Pine’s Egyptian Theatre could go dark for months.

SIFF says a major water pipe burst on an upper story of the Seattle Central-owned building home to the historic theater Tuesday damaged multiple floors of the 1916-era structure.

SIFF said it looks like the building could be closed for a long time. Continue reading →

Legacy of a Central District musical giant will live on at Garfield High School’s Quincy Jones Performance Center — UPDATE

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The Quincy Jones mural at Garfield High School

The Quincy Jones Performance Center (Image: Lewis Crutcher Lewis)

A musical giant and embodiment of Garfield High School’s and the Central District’s place in the cultural history of Seattle, composer and producer Quincy Jones has died. Jones was 91.

The Quincy Jones Performance Center opened in 2008 as part of a $107.4 million renovation of the 23rd Ave campus attended by public high school students from across the Central District and Capitol Hill areas and honors the entertainment icon’s legacy — and hard work to rise to the top of the industry.

“I can’t believe it’s been 70 years since I walked these halls as a student…as a young kid who wasn’t sure how life would turn out, or even if I would ever know of a life outside the gangs,” Jones wrote in 2017. “Moving to Seattle forever changed me for the better…and finding music here showed me that I could be more than a statistic. My hope and prayer is that these kids know they can too…the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary, and that’s the TRUTH!…I’ve lived it!” Continue reading →