For Immediate Release
Contact: David Johnston, davidj@xtmnyc.org

NYC Music Places & NYC Dance Places Testify Before
City Council

Propose Citywide Cultural Infrastructure

December 14, 2005
 

(New York, N.Y.) - On Wednesday, December 7th, Eugenie Cowan, Director, and David Johnston, Program Director, of Exploring the Metropolis testified before the City Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations in a session focusing on "Strategies Facing the Performing Arts Community." Excerpts from their testimony appear in italics below.

They discussed their organization's website services, NYC Music Places and NYC Dance Places, and their work towards solving one of the most critical challenges facing performing artists - finding affordable rehearsal and performance space:

"We are a nonprofit service organization that hosts free websites to help performers find work space and cultural facilities rent their underused space. This is a double benefit: performers spend less search time and find better deals, and facilities market underused spaces and produce earned income.

We built the NYC Music and Dance Places websites - and will debut NYC Theatre Places in 2006 - using a cross section of each genre's community to guide website development priorities.

We think of the performing arts as an ecosystem of commonalities. The arts need spaces to create, rehearse and to perform before an assembled audience; have little time and less money; and are increasingly collaborative and technology savvy.

By year end, 65,000 visitors will have used our NYC Music and NYC Dance Places websites; our websites list over 1,200 spaces for hourly, daily, weekly or monthly rent in the five boroughs.

Our data shows that:

1. the average requested rehearsal rate is $20/hr, and
2. an average 90% of searchers find at least one space that meets their search criteria.

. . . We need a coordinated citywide cultural infrastructure policy, guided by a representative task force of active performing arts practitioners and cultural facility managers. We propose three tasks:

1. Establishing a capital financing mechanism for small- and mid-sized organizations to support basic short-term needs - such as the costs of moving, or finding shared office, rehearsal or performance space - and a no-interest loan program for facilities with emergency needs.
2. Adopting NYSCA's dance rehearsal space subsidy, an important government operational support. In FY05, NYSCA grants ranging from $2,500 to $24,900 given to 17 nonprofit organizations provided 30,500 subsidized or free rehearsal hours to the dance community. We also need this double-benefit for music and theatre practitioners and facilities.
3. Strengthening the performing arts through carefully targeted zoning. The City Planning Department needs to look at zoning in districts, such as BAM, in new developments or adaptive uses.

AND for all this, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) needs major new funding."

Exploring the Metropolis urges you to Contact your City Council member and add your voice to any of the above "tasks" that you think would benefit you or your performing arts organization. Tell them about the great services that NYC Music Places and NYC Dance Places provide for the performing arts.

For more information, contact David Johnston at davidj@xtmnyc.org or call at (212) 886-2503.

The NYC Music Places and NYC Dance Places websites are supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts; corporate foundations, including Altria Group, Inc., the Sponsor of the NYC Dance Places website, and Verizon; private foundations, including The New York Community Trust; and individuals.

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