Unused Space, Indoors

I received an email yesterday from someone who said that a performance artist friend was having a hard time finding affordable rehearsal space. Her idea was to try and integrate these rehearsals into entertainment for an outdoor venue, a la the street food court + garden/art space that was previously mentioned on this site.

While I think this is a terrific idea, I couldn't help but think that these artists might prefer space indoors, and might need electricity, a flat surface to work on, and so forth. Where might one find such a space? How about in the street-level empty retail spaces that grace many of the new condo and apartment developments around the hill?

For example, John Court, at 15th and John, has a huge empty retail space -- one that could either be a restaurant or be subdivided into three smaller shops; they are probably hoping to get a tanning salon, a real estate agent, and a check-cashing spot -- that could easily accommodate a small theater troupe, dance crew, guerilla projection team, etc.


The major obstacle to such an arrangement, and a recurring theme around here, would probably be liability insurance. Other than that, I can not imagine why a property owner would not be open to leasing space out temporarily, especially to the arts. In such a situation, everyone wins: the artists have a place to rehearse, the owner gets good PR and can bring in a few bucks without substantial risk, and the street becomes that much more lively during rehearsals.

As an exploratory effort, I'm going to put together a google map showing buildings with this sort of dead street level space (wanna help? email me). I have asked the emailer to round up a list of artists in need of such space, and hopefully we can find a way to help them make connections with the owners. Also, if you have any connections at companies like CBRE, I could use all the inside help I can get.

Cracked Viaduct

Check out this video from the 5:AM Gallery. As a wall essentially separating the city from the bay, and a monolithic structure out of scale with the natural human experience, it begs for this sort of intervention. Only the top surface is used, and then only by motor vehicles: the remaining surfaces either block the view of the water and city, or threaten to crush the unfortunate soul who wanders beneath it at the wrong time.

Independence Day

Something is brewing over at CHS.

A Few Comments and Moving On

Regarding the Guerilla Dance Party:

In general, PPL thinks it was great to utilize the space, even if the event was illegitimate and even if it upset neighbors. The party brought more attention to this empty space and I hope others continue to organize events, whether they have permission or not. However, a few minor critiques that would serve to better unify the neighborhood and "cause":

First, pick up after yourself. Leaving bottles all over the lot makes you look as disrespectful as the "system" the led to the destruction of this block. It's my opinion that we should show the owners how to be better neighbors, rather than fighting back with the same sort of disregard for the neighborhood that brought this empty space upon us.

Secondly, and in the same vein, aiming to do something noisy with a little more consideration for the time would have probably been more productive. More people would have come out and less people would be bitching. Starting an hour earlier would have made the event a lot closer to following noise ordinances, which state that it has to be done by 11:00 on weekends.

That's it, as far as I'm concerned. I congratulate the organizers for pulling it off and hope to speak with them shortly. In the back of my head, I fear that the owner might put up fences and/or not allow any more legitimate events to take place on the lot, which would be a shame. I also think that would be a mistake on their part, given the effectiveness of this guerilla campaign. I guess we'll see what happens.

Moving on:

Coming up on Wednesday at Town Hall, the German Urban Planner Thomas Sieverts will be in town to give a talk entitled "Re-imagining Urban Spaces." Though this lecture addresses "in-between" areas, or sprawl, as I would call it, I find it an interesting topic related to unused space. He's interested in the future of what we've already built: places like Tukwila and Burien, places that are in between the city and country. I'm interested in the future of what we haven't built, what we've destroyed or abandoned in the city, places in between past use and possible future use. It should be interesting.

On Thursday, Sieverts will be touring the B /IAS installation: an in-between place in an in-between place (temporary art in Burien). It's free and open to the public.

Lastly, on Friday at Northwest Film Forum, he will sit on a panel that includes the Stranger's own self-styled urbanist, and ignorer of this blog and everything we're trying to accomplish, Charles Mudede. (I actually do respect what Mudede does, I've just been hoping for more of his support, so I'm venting here. That's what most people use blogs for anyway, right?)

More details about these and other events on Suddenly.org.

Dance Party Manifesto

Taken from a comment on the Line Out story. The commenter said this was published on indymedia but I couldn't find it:

(Quote)
These kids wanted to put the "punk" back in "punctuality" so they promptly began at 11:55pm. The first song was by Michael Jackson, the crowd of for than 250 people went crazy. They were kicking up dust and yelling. They had been enduring a costly, corporate 21+ pride for two whole nights, this was there moment, their time to shine.

Someone climbed to the top of the hill and asked the DJ to stop. "It's midnight motherfuckers! Stonewall was a queer and trans riot and it happened 40 years ago as of right now! Maybe you didn't know Pride is supposed to be celebrating that moment in our history, Budweiser doesn't include that on the banners they have all over the place. Fuck 21+ venues, fuck covers, fuck corporate Pride. This moment is yours, its ours!"

Dolly Parton blasted and everyone cheered. We did it, we really did it.

At the other end of the parking lot two cars had called the cops because of a minor wreck. The cop who was taking that report had been watching the goings-on and called for backup. The parking lot where a queer bar called Pony used to be suddenly got the Swine Flu as more and more cop cars showed up and began shining their lights on the crowd. The queers were not phased, they danced harder, used to the things they value being threatened by the systems that are supposed to protect them.

After five songs and much "you need to leave the parking lot" talk, the cops approached the speaker where the music was coming from. The DJ calmly unplugged his music player and walked away has he had been instructed. One person grabbed the cords connecting the device and disappeared into the crowd. The queer in charge of the power source flew into action and had everything in his bag in a matter of seconds. The kid who needed to take one part of the sound system ran with it clutched to their chest, ridding away in car. All of this took seconds to happen. These well prepared folx had their shit on lock and the cops were too slow to stop them.

The woman in charge of getting the speaker that was providing sound was carrying it away. The cops grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, she screamed, witnesses saw the cops hand come down hard on the woman's back. Another cop was shaking a man by his jacket screaming, "I've worked for 12 hours and don't have to deal with this shit!". The cops had pushed the large crowd out of the parking lot by now. Cops yelled hilarious things like, "There's still time to drink, go back to the bars!". Some of the crowd had disappeared leaving only 150 people to chant things like, "give us back our speaker!", "up the punks!", "fuck corporate pride", "out of the bars and into the streets".

One man was arrested, a cop claiming he had keyed his car. The man's room mate was with him the entire night, "He was standing with me, he didn't key anything. He was standing there and then he was gone." People quickly formed a group around supporting the man until he got out on bail.

Last nights guerrilla dance party showed two things, that queers now how to throw a fucking party and that we're only allowed to celebrate Pride if a large company profits from our gatherings. But the cops came too late, we had proved to ourselves and others that queers don't need to be backed by a corporate sponsor in order to commemorate the queer and trans folx who came before us and made the shit we do daily possible. The folx at Stonewall would have been proud of us and recognized what we were doing because they did it themselves, last night we made the world we wanted to see.
(/Quote)

Send any other info/photos you have.

Dance Party News/Opinion

On Line Out.

Guerilla Dance Party!

Well, evidently I made a mistake not going down to check it out. An hour after it was supposed to start, I heard it was only going to last twenty minutes. Maybe the timing on this twitter feed archive is wrong because it unfortunately seems like such an event would get shut down quickly, especially with neighbors like this person:

The police pulled out the bullhorns & sent everyone on their merry way. Small consolation considering I am now wide awake. Douchebags.
43 minutes ago from web

Annnnnnnd, now that the dance party is disbursed by Seattle's Finest, the partygoers are going to chant in protest. That's fucking aces.
about 1 hour ago from web

They don't even have the decency to play good music. I mean, I'm being kept up by Rihanna on full blast?
about 1 hour ago from web

Seriously, I don't care if it's pride weekend, I'm calling the cops as many times as I have to on this one.
about 1 hour ago from web

OMG FUCK WHATEVER IS GOING ON IN THAT EMPTY LOT ON PINE/SUMMIT. I AM TRYING TO SLEEP.
about 1 hour ago from web

I'll refrain from posting this person's username out of decency, though I'm not sure they deserve it. Hopefully everyone had fun while it lasted! Surely some photos and information will pop up tomorrow. If you have either, let me know.