Tag Archives: dance

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 →

‘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 →

Vice Seattle’s ‘next level of nightlife’ ready for red carpet debut below Capitol Hill’s Melrose Market

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(Images: Vice Seattle)

Seattle’s “next level of nightlife” has arrived below Capitol Hill’s Melrose Market. New dance club Vice Seattle will celebrate its grand opening this weekend.

$20 “red carpet” tickets are on sale for the new Minor Ave club’s opening night as event producer White Rabbit Group begins its ongoing Friday residency in the premier of the new venue “with its world class custom sound system and visual display, built to bring party back to the Hill.”

“With breathtaking sound and light production, the world’s hottest touring artists and painstaking attention to detail, this is the nightlife experience that Seattle has been waiting for,” the venues backers say. Vice Seattle will debut with a custom sound system featuring “award-winning Fulcrum Acoustic sound providing crystal-clear sound quality, and the jaw-dropping arrangement of LED visuals and smart lighting design.” Rules include no vaping, of course, and no nudity. “This is the nightlife you deserve,” the promo concludes.

CHS broke the news in January on plans for the club project as part of a new wave of activity around the Melrose Market development after the market’s 2019 purchase by Regency Centers, the same real estate investment trust that owns the Broadway Market shopping center. New food and drink options from Harry’s Good Times plus Cantina Sauvage and Cafe Suliman are also part of the mix. Around the block, San Francisco-based real estate company Prado Group’s purchase of the market’s neighboring property has also brought a host of changes including the new Cheese Room in the old Machiavelli space and the opening soon, first Seattle expansion of Voodoo Doughnuts.

Vice Seattle is the latest creation from Noah Garroutte, Raj Tubati, and Roger RoRo Eng. The nightlife entrepreneurs are also behind Forum Social House, an activities and club space in Bellevue’s Lincoln Square mall. Continue reading →

Inside 12th Ave’s NOD Theater, eXit Space School of Dance has taken a leap of faith on Capitol Hill

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(Image: eXit SPACE)

(Image: eXit SPACE)

While many Seattle arts organizations were hit hard during the pandemic, eXit SPACE School of Dance took a leap of faith, investing in a theater space on Capitol Hill — now the lively and flourishing NOD Theater.

Celebrating its 20th year next season, eXit SPACE began in a 900-square-foot space and now spans three studios including 12th Ave’s NOD Theater and offers over 80 classes a week.

“This space was so meaningful to our community for decades, and it was important to us to keep it open and accessible to the arts in Seattle.” said faculty member Karen Baskett.

NOD Theater was formerly home to Velocity Dance which opted to leave Capitol Hill prior to the pandemic looking for a more affordable base for its works. In a desire to preserve this space that provided an affordable place to perform and  a pillar of their community, eXit artistic director and owner Marlo Martin took a chance and signed the lease.

The theater has a long history in the dance community of Seattle and has been a home to a number of arts organizations. Continue reading →

PopRox Studio bringing ‘all genders, all levels, all bodies, all ages, all fun’ dance to Capitol Hill with new location in Chophouse Row

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(Image: PopRox Studio)

(Image: PopRox Studio)

By Soumya Gupta, CHS intern

PopRox Studio, a Seattle dance studio that offers “confidence building, judgment free dance classes for kids and adults,” has announced its plans to open a new studio on Capitol Hill in the Chophouse Row commercial development.

It will be the growing business’s second studio, after its first location in University District.

Co-founders of PopRox Studio, Kinsey Flores and Cathy Barnett, officially announced plans for the new studio this week.

“We explored the neighbourhood quite a bit, and absolutely loved what the community had to offer to help us grow,” Barnett said. “The Chophouse Row is also a unique location, which hosts brands with a similar ethos like ours.”

The new studio will be located on the lower level of the 11th Ave Chophouse Row building where a series of businesses have rotated through. But the PopRox effort to create the new studio will be a larger investment. The new PopRox will debut in January 2024. Continue reading →

Three Capitol Hill clubs, three futures: Neighbours ‘under new ownership,’ former R Place shaped as restaurant project, Q marks 10 years of dancing on Broadway

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The 10th anniversary party at Q (Image: Q Nightclub)

Meanwhile, new ownership at Neighbours (Image: CHS)

Three centers of Capitol Hill nightlife face very different futures as a new owner has closed a $2.7 million deal to purchase iconic Capitol Hill gay dance bar Neighbours. Meanwhile, the next life for the former R Place is taking shape while Broadway club Q is marking 10 years in the neighborhood with plans for changes behind the scenes.

“It’s been a long road, but we finally took over,” new Neighbours owner TJ Bruce tells CHS.

CHS broke the news on the Neighbours deal in April as Bruce, an investor and backer of gay clubs stretching from Fresno to San Jose to San Francisco to Portland, was shaping a deal for the Seattle club and the 1911-built, 14,000-square-foot Broadway building it has called home for 40 years. The property hit the market for $6.9 million in 2019 only to be relisted at $5.75 million in late 2020. Bruce arrived at a deal at a much lower price as the Elassiouti family that has owned the property, local managers, and promoters who have kept Neighbours open and busy prepared to hand over the reins.

The market for well-loved and a little rough around the edges Capitol Hill gay dance clubs apparently tops out around $3 million. King County property records show the former E Pine home of R Place also finally sold this year for $2.5 million. Continue reading →

Introducing the Lowdown Ballroom, Capitol Hill’s newest home-based business and performance venue

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Singer songwriter Kat Hjelte performing atop Lowdown Ballroom’s garage terrace (Image: Donia Rose Photography)

What if your Capitol Hill neighbors’ microbusiness is a ballroom that puts on shows in the street? The Lowdown Ballroom is putting the concept to the test on 11th Ave E just north of Mercer in a four-bedroom, 1906-built house with a fantastic basement and a garage that serves as a convenient outdoor summer stage.

“When we were first researching, I said, ‘There is no way we can do this,’” Madeline Yan tells CHS about the unusual Capitol Hill home-based business she and husband Alex Yan have launched out of the pandemic.

But an appreciation and love for music, city zoning, good sound insulation, good insurance, and better neighbors have come together for Lowdown, adding a new venue for live music and performance on Capitol Hill. Continue reading →

From cannabis to clubs, Capitol Hill’s The Baltic Room has a new owner

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Proud owners Rachel Keith and Rahsaan Henry (Image: The Baltic Room)

From The Ganja Mom to Capitol Hill’s new queen of clubs? Rachel Keith is a long way from creating anything like Linda Derschang’s empire just yet but with her summer takeover of The Baltic Room, she’s proud to at least be following in a few of Derschang’s earliest dance steps.

Keith purchased the Baltic, the Pine dance club Derschang first opened as a piano bar in 1997, this summer and celebrated a grand reopening last month.

“What’s the Baltic Room?,” Keith asked earlier this year as she was searching through listings for an available club. “My husband and I have always been in the nightlife scene. I decided to go check it out.” Continue reading →

‘Merce 100’ celebrates past and future at Velocity Dance as director says goodbye

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Merce Cunningham (Image: Merce Cunningham Trust)

Ella Mahler is lying on her back on the marley floor, stock-still, like a bear has been chasing her and playing dead is her last resort. But then, suddenly, she gets up and scurries across the vinyl floors of the back studio of Capitol Hill’s Velocity Dance Center. In hurried movements, she lifts her knees up, combat-style, only to later duck and then balance gracefully on one leg, outsmarting an invisible assailer purely with poise.

Mahler, a Seattle-based dancer, choreographer and Velocity’s 2019 Made in Seattle Artist, is running through the movements of her solo choreography Absolute. Less than two weeks to go before showtime, December 14th. Mahler is one of the nine dancers performing newly created choreographies for MERCE 100: Seattle Artists Respond to Merce, a four-day long, Capitol Hill-centered celebration of and response to the centennial of world-famous dancer and Washington native Merce Cunningham (1919 – 2009), running December 13th through 16th.

Cunningham, who was born in Centralia and studied at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century thanks to his radical, innovative approach to dance, for example by using dice and other chance-based processes to decide how his dancers would move. Continue reading →

Exit Interview: Velocity Dance’s Tonya Lockyer on 16 years in the arts on Capitol Hill

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Tonya Lockyer (Image: Bettina Hansen with permission to CHS)

Tonya Lockyer began as a touring artist and educator, eventually finding her roots in Seattle after joining Velocity Dance Center as an artist and completing graduate school at the University of Washington. She went on to be Velocity’s programs and communications manager, and eventually its executive director.

In June, Lockyer announced she will be stepping down from her post this fall after 16 years with the organization.

Entering Velocity in a time of instability, debt, and amid an emergency capital campaign, Lockyer implemented operational and artistic direction and, in just two years, had Velocity operating in the black.

With accolades like the Mayor’s Artz Award, Tonya’s tenure has brought national visibility to the dance center and its residents, acting as the “portal to Seattle dance,” and a destination for touring choreographers. Her leadership influenced exceptional growth in audiences and artist residencies, with consistently sold-out community events and classes.

CHS spoke with Lockyer about how she got involved with Velocity and Seattle’s dance scene, her proudest moments as Artistic Executive Director, the importance of dance for our community, and what’s next for her.

How did you get involved with Velocity?: When I first moved to Seattle, I was teaching and I ran into a Seattle choreographer and said that I was moving to Seattle. She said, “Seattle is great, and my friend KT Niehoff needs someone to stay in her house!” So the very first place I ever lived was in the home of the co-founder of Velocity, KT Niehoff. Continue reading →