Physical theatre: drawing inspiration from the physical grace and power of dance, a new student theatre at the University of Arizona is a bold new campus landmark that enhances cultural life

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2004

The University of Arizona (UA) came into being in the late nineteenth century at a time when college education in the USA was neither common nor an especially high civic priority. In 1885, when Tucson was named the site of Arizona's new university (rather than its capital, state prison, or insane asylum), residents were thoroughly dismayed. As no one was willing to provide land for the new institution, the city was on the verge of returning the $25 000 funding to the state legislature, but a pair of gamblers and a saloon-keeper saved the day by donating 40 acres of land to the east of town. Classes convened in 1891 with 32 students, six teachers and two departments, agriculture and mines, all sharing one building, which is still in use.

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From such frontier beginnings, UA has grown to a lively and respected regional institution. Today it has over 36 000 students, the vast majority drawn from Arizona and the American South-West. Its Dance Division, which forms part of the College of Fine Arts, is particularly popular and is one of the top ranked arts educational programmes in the US. Rigorous training in ballet, modern and jazz dance is underscored by an emphasis on live performance and UA student ensembles have toured extensively to great acclaim. Paradoxically, for such a prestigious course, facilities for performance on the campus were limited, but with the recent inauguration of the new Stevie Eller Dance Theatre, the university now has a venue that not only matches the ambitions of its students and teachers, but also adds to Tucson's wider cultural life.

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Phoenix-based Gould Evans were commissioned to design the new theatre which forms a landmark and gateway at the eastern end of the campus. At the heart of the building is a 300 seat theatre with a full flytower, orchestra pit, scene and costume shops, lobby and outdoor stage. These performance spaces are augmented by a rehearsal studio that forms the project's public face as a big box teeteringly supported on (apparently) randomly angled pilotis that rise up from the theatre lobby below. The huge vitrine of the dance studio overlooks the university's main mall, revealing tantalizing glimpses of activity and animation as the students go through their paces. At night, the studio is transformed into a softly luminous box as light percolates through an external carapace of rusted woven wire panels that are kinked and cranked like powerfully rippling muscles.

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Rusted metal has become something of a South-West signature material, enthusiastically employed by an emerging generation of architects to evoke a sense of the region's vernacular tradition. Rusted steel farm buildings and structures are a common sight in the Arizona countryside, yet because of the hot, dry climate, the steel weathers quickly but does not rust through, so it is rarely necessary to use costly proprietary types of oxidized steel cladding. Here the metal scrim is held well clear of the main building envelope, dematarializing and subverting the orthogonal mass of the dance studio and theatre, which in turn forms a dark, neutral background for the callisthenics of the external skin. Capable of accommodating projections of light and images, the scrim can also function as an eye-catching theatre billboard.

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The irregular form of the outer envelope is carried through into the intimate, cavern-like, interior of the theatre. The two principal volumes of dance studio and auditorium are necessarily separated (for acoustic and circulation purposes) by a narrow cleft-like corridor, lit by a glazed slot incised into the east facade. Nestling underneath the hull of the dance studio, the public lobby is a fluid, permeable space. Support functions such as dressing rooms, costume store and scene dock are arranged on the east edge of the auditorium, forming a link between the new building and the existing faculty. Male and female dressing rooms are separated by a roll-up divider on performance nights, but the two rooms can also be connected to form a single studio space for Pilates classes. A pair of garage doors allows the studio to extend outside into an adjoining courtyard garden.

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As well as efficiently accommodating the various elements of the programme, the project is also an exploration of how to interpret the movement and physicality of dance in built form, reconciling the apparently incompatible intangible, fleeting qualities of movement with architectural solidity and permanence. Key to this process was an investigation of graphic representation of dance or Labanotation, a system of written symbols developed by Hungarian choreographer Rudolf Laban in the 1920s, that records and describes dance performances in the manner of a musical score. Jory Hancock, head of UA's Dance Division, suggested that the architects look at the Labanotation of Serenade, the first piece that George Balanchine (founder of the School of American Ballet) created for his students. The plans of the starting positions for each movement of Serenade were used to create a matrix from which emerge a grid of tilted columns that support the dance studio. The pervading impression is of mass gracefully poised and rendered almost weightless by the balletic slenderness of the columns and the supple contortions of metal outer casing.