Even before the Navy folded its tent and ceased use of the former Naval Training Center in 1997, John Malashock was busy spearheading plans for DancePlace San Diego, an anchor venue for local dance companies.
As ideas for the NTC Promenade unfolded, the founder of Malashock Dance staked his claim on a collaborative center for dance that united local groups of varied genres.
Those plans are now materializing at a wholesale clip. Following several months’ construction delays and concerns over funding, DancePlace opened Dec. 1 and was one of six buildings to launch last month at NTC.
But for Malashock, the venue also represents a watershed for local dance. Its first permanent home is opening at a peak time of interest in the art form, he said, noting a spike in the number of practitioners. Today, 14 dance groups or associations belong to the San Diego Performing Arts League (PAL), the 170-member service organization for local performers and arts administrators. Several others stage programs throughout the year as league nonmembers.
And Malashock is not alone. San Diego Ballet and the Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theatre maintain offices at DancePlace. Actors Alliance of San Diego, the local theater community’s service organization, has also taken up residence at NTC.
Additionally, area universities are hopping on the bandwagon by hiring “quite a bit” of dance personnel with substantial professional reputations, Malashock noted.
“There’s definitely something of a dance boom going on right now,” Malashock said. “I think there’s nothing more significant than the opening of DancePlace San Diego. It’s going to have a very galvanizing effect on the dance community and, hopefully, the public perception of dance.”
That perception, Malashock said, is routinely colored by an audience’s misdirection.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “what audience members try to do is work very hard to try to understand it. There’s a habit of wanting to use your brain first. I think of it a little bit more like music. People are rarely sitting at a music concert trying to figure out what it is. They’re just kind of letting it wash over them.”
DancePlace San Diego is administered by the NTC Foundation, the nonprofit organization that devised the plans and vision for the Promenade. The 4,000-square-foot building, located at 2650 Truxtun Road, carries a monthly rental premium of $4,000 and cost about $5 million to renovate.
Kathryn Martin, vice president of the Los Angeles- and Boston-based Arts Consulting Group, is quick to point out major logistical advantages to the venue “” advantages that play a major role in a dancer’s longevity.
“It has things that dancers need,” she explained, “like showers and lockers. Those don’t sound very glamorous, but they matter. And the dance floors are specially designed for each [of the three] studio[s]. One is designed for bare feet, “¦ and the next is designed to [accommodate] ballet shoes. Many dance companies have to rehearse in places that aren’t always so inspiring. This place really is appropriate and well-equipped.”
That presence, Martin said, is especially welcome at this expansive point in San Diego dance history. She explained that a Malashock-choreographed installment of San Diego Opera’s “The Pearl Fishers” will tour the country this year and that Isaacs’ company is set to perform in New York this month. “We all know the success that the [San Diego] theater community has had on Broadway,” she said, “but that’s also happening very much with dance. I think we’re only going to start hearing more stories of cultural ambassadorship and the role that dance is playing.
“Something amazing is about to happen just by having everybody under one roof.”
Malashock noted that that phenomenon hasn’t yet found its way into an ideal performance space. For all its polish, he explained, DancePlace doesn’t include stationary public seating “” such plans, he said, are in the NTC Foundation’s hands and perhaps involve renovation of the Promenade’s 1,800-seat Luce Auditorium. That work, Malashock said, will involve some serious reconfiguration of the space to facilitate use by multiple performance groups.
“Our big hope is that we can identify a space to really be developed as theater space,” Malashock said. “[The Luce] is a huge project to convert, but it would really complete the vision of this being a performing arts complex.”
But the first element is in place. It’s already spawned the fledgling Malashock Dance School, which will offer a wide range of classes to a wide range of ages. The sky’s the limit, Malashock said, especially now that there’s a roof under it.
“DancePlace is going to change dance in San Diego forever,” Malashock said. “That’s a bold statement, but I really think it’s true.”