At 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, the main rehearsal studio at Arts Umbrella’s Granville Island building is packed with more than 30 young-adult dancers sprawled out on the floor. Even while stretching, they move mindfully, careful not to bump into each other. But soon, all of this will change.
With Emily Carr University of Art and Design leaving Granville Island, Arts Umbrella has been named as the next tenant for the coveted 50,000-sq.ft, purpose-built arts education space.
Among the students stretching in the over-crowded studio is 23-year-old Maya Tenzer, an alumna of Arts Umbrella’s graduate training program.
Despite the fact that the studio – and Arts Umbrella as a whole – is tight on space, Tenzer and other alumni are welcome to drop in for dance classes, free of charge.
Tenzer dances professionally for a few small companies in Vancouver and also teaches beginner ballet. Next year she will move to Europe, where she’s been hired to dance full time in a prestigious company. And, although she won’t be there to see it, Tenzer says she’s excited about the school’s move to the south building of Emily Carr’s former campus (the north building will eventually house other, multiuse tenants).
“The fact that Arts Umbrella is not for profit, everything is about giving to the students. So to see the organization get the chance to expand based on those principles is really exciting, because it doesn’t feel like growth for the sake of growth. It’s growth so they can help more people, and expand what is already very strong.”
The new space on Johnston Street is a 30-second walk from Arts Umbrella’s current home. The move will more than double Arts Umbrella’s combined Granville Island and East 7th spaces, giving the non-profit 50,000 square feet of floor space on which to move and create.
Granville Island is federal land, managed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). It was first dedicated as a space for urban experimentation and creative activities in the 1970s, and the land is leased to tenants at rates far below market rental rates.
That Arts Umbrella has lasted in its current setup as long as it has is a curious thing, given that it’s almost a 40-year-old institution, its dance program is world renowned, and it has provided arts education to more than half a million young people – including myself.
From the age of 11 to 14 I danced intensively at Arts Umbrella. I didn’t have a stereotypically slim dancer’s body, but artistic director Artemis Gordon told me that if I wanted to become a professional dancer, I could do it. Ultimately, if you chose to commit to your craft, there were adults around you who would commit to you just as hard.
Although I quit mid-high school to pursue a social life, my time at Arts Umbrella instilled a sense of purpose, awareness and possibility.
Fifteen years after my time there, Gordon is still leading the organization with the same ethos.
Interviewed in her cramped office, she explains how her current 5x8-ft office serves as a multipurpose space. “This office is the teacher’s lounge, my office, the teacher’s meeting room, the kids’ meeting room, and, at any point in the day, there might be five or six people in this room, and you can’t really get through the door because the door is too small,” she says. “And my closet turns into the guest teacher change room, and what’s amazing is that some of the guest teachers that we have are some of the top dance people in the world... it doesn’t deter them from coming, though.”
Paul Larocque, Arts Umbrella CEO, says the organization’s new home will require major renovations and he has begun “quietly” fundraising behind the scenes. In addition to the seven dance studios, there will be a 160-seat theatre with a sprung floor, the theatre program will grow from one studio to five, and the media and visual arts programs will have eight studios. “There were plans to look at expansion on this current site, but that would have had to disrupt the programs on site,” he says. Until recently, he continues, ECUAD has served as an arts and culture anchor on the island, and Arts Umbrella looks forward to filling those shoes.
