Under one roof: business and art rub shoulders at Vancouver's new dance center

Dance Magazine, Jan, 2002 by Allan Ulrich

It is, however, the artists inhabiting the Scotiabank Dance Centre who will matter most. John Alleyne, for nine years the artistic director of Ballet British Columbia, envisions "a collision of ideas. You bring different kinds of artists together under one roof and there's the potential for a rare exchange. With that, it is possible for a community to start to shape a cohesive identity. When I came back to Canada after dancing in Stuttgart, I saw a country that had a distinct artistic identity, as well as regional and local identities. I honestly believe art comes out of the land you live in.

"I actually feel like I'm in a city here. There's a vital energy that is inspiring."

Marcuse these days produces popular text-dance pieces, partly compiled by teenagers and staged for them in large public spaces across Canada. She has been part of the Vancouver scene since the 1970s.

"This will be the end of ghettoization. It is critical for me that if the arts are to survive, they must be reintegrated into the mainstream," Marcuse noted. "The center is simple and clean and doesn't impose. The public can see into this building; and there's a synergy that evolves from being cheek by jowl. Look through the windows and you see dancers moving. You see that we are essentially workers, not these creatures you see onstage. And the artists, freed from a culture of self-poverty, feel worthy. This is a palace and it is extraordinary."

Allan Ulrich is a dance and music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.