March 3, 2008

Mouth to Mouth

CPR - Center for Performance Research, a new non-profit arts facility in Williamsburg Brooklyn, is scheduled to open sometime in Winter 2008. CPR is artist-driven, co-founded by John Jasperse/Thin Man Dance, Inc. and Jonah Bokaer/Chez Bushwick, Inc. Barbara Bryan, the Managing Director of Jasperse's company and the Executive Director of Movement Research, is also a co-founder. Located on the ground floor of a mixed-use residential condominium building called "Greenbelt" on 361 Manhattan Avenue, CPR will offer low-cost rehearsal rentals in two studios. Rehearsal rentals will range from $6-12 an hour. A 30-hour one-week performance rental will cost approximately $2,080.  The bigger of the two studios, approximately 40' x 45', will accommodate artists working on a larger scale with seating for up to 70 people for performances and small showings. Jasperse hopes that within two years the studio will be equipped with theatrical lighting for which a grid is already being installed. The smaller studio will be more multi-purpose, used for everything from rehearsals and yoga classes to panel discussions and exposition space for visual art. CPR is also designed to support the organizations of its two artist founders, offering them both a secure long-term home for project development and performance preparation.

Jasperse and Bokaer are looking at different residency models for CPR. Resident choreographers will eventually be curated by a rotating panel of artists, opening up the process and at the same time remaining artist-driven. A company-in-residence, for example, would receive one year of low-cost rentals, storage space, and the ability to work uninterrupted in the same space for an extended period of time. This is especially important to Jasperse whose experience of having his own studio in Bushwick for fourteen years was seminal in making his body of work. Much of Jasperse work is installation-based. Using objects in his work is something he says he couldn't have done without the stability of his own low-cost space. Losing it in 2005 represented a radical change for him. He became more acutely aware of frustrations over the lack of space and the effect it had not just on him, but its overall effect on the dance community. "The lack of that resource has radically defined what the New York community makes and how they think," Jasperse says. This frustration is what motivated him to look again for permanent space and avail those resources to the larger community. Previously, Jasperse did this on an informal level in his Bushwick space making it available long term to other artists.

The formation of CPR is in response to what is basically a crisis,  what Bokaer calls the "tide of urban displacement" of artists in New York City. The developers of  "Greenbelt," Derek Denckla's Propeller Group, conceived of the project as a way to address this ongoing displacement. They plan to harness the power of the market by selling market rate residential condos to offset the development of the ground floor arts facility. The project's environmental sustainability is an additional plus. The building is the first in Brooklyn to be certified as a L.E.E.D. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Project, in the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings.

The developers got together with Thin Man Dance only after initially approaching other arts organizations such as WAX and Movement Research. Neither was in a position to sign on at the time. Barbara Bryan, then on the board of Movement Research, introduced the two parties. Chez Bushwick was soon brought on board to form a coalition of artists and, until recently, the partnership included Wally Cardona/WCV, Inc. Cardona will no longer be a partner, but will likely become CPR's first company-in-residence. Both Jasperse and Bokaer are in the midst of their own capital campaigns to raise money to purchase the space.

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