Arts programs find new homes for fall semester through creativity, lots of hard work

The June floods on the University of Iowa campus, which devastated the facilities for three of the academic arts programs and the University’s presenting auditorium, could be considered a real disaster. But Kayt Conrad, director of operations for the Division of Performing Arts, sees the other side of the coin.

Two buildings near the Iowa City Main Post Office and Johnson County Courthouse—Clinton Street Music 375 and 376—have been fitted for practice and rehearsal spaces. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

“I feel like we’re the lucky ones,” Conrad says.

“I’ve been amazed at how resourceful, creative, and hard-working people here are. It’s affirming to work in a such a great place.”

Conrad says it was clear almost immediately that the scope of the flooding—and the recovery work afterward—would be far greater than in 1993. “I thought, 'we’re not going back in there,'” she says. “'We need to get started on the fall right now.’”

As part of the Division of Performing Arts, Conrad works with the School of Music, the Department of Theatre Arts, and the less seriously affected Department of Dance. People in the other units along the river also started planning for the future as soon as the floods hit. Chuck Swanson, the executive director of Hancher Auditorium, says: “As soon as the Hancher staff was all together in the Lindquist Center, people started thinking creatively about our planned season, and what we could accomplish. There was just such an energy to being all together.”

For Swanson, the message was clear: “It comes back to the fact that we weren’t going to let this flood stop us, and the fact that Hancher is more than a building. That’s where we got our theme for the coming year: ‘You can’t contain us.’ We’re still Hancher, whether we’re in the building or not.”

For the faculty and staff of the School of Art and Art History, moving out of Art Building West—the prize-winning architectural jewel that the school had occupied for only two years—was especially difficult. But Steve McGuire, who coordinates the studio arts programs, learned from the experience.

“For us, this is a real opportunity to reimagine the Iowa ideal—that the studio arts and art history, the arts community, and the wider university reinforce and purposefully inform one another,” he says. “We’ve found a home for the year, and as nice as these temporary facilities are, being isolated from the rest of the campus has pointed out to me how important it is, for the education of an artist and for the faculty, to be in the middle of the larger community of artists and scholars.

“We like being all together on the arts campus, and we look forward to getting back there again.”

At this time, all the buildings on the arts campus have been dried out and cleaned, but there is still a long way to go before appropriate abatement procedures will be completed, power can be restored, and the buildings put into use again. In the meantime, the four units that have been flooded out—the School of Art and Art History, School of Music, Department of Theatre Arts, and Hancher Auditorium—faced a huge challenge for the fall semester: finding locations for performances, classes, rehearsals, arts studios, and faculty offices.

The solutions they found reflect a remarkable combination of ingenuity, energy, and assistance from many people within the University and a wide variety of organizations and groups in the community.

Art and Art History

The Studio Arts Building—which Iowa City residents will know as the former Menards store on Highway 1—will house all of the arts studios and studio faculty offices except intermedia and photography, which will be in the Communications Center. The school is replacing equipment that was damaged in the floods, while all the equipment that was not damaged has been moved to Studio Arts. The building will host its first day of classes on Wednesday, Aug. 27.

Art history classes and faculty offices have been assigned throughout the campus, and the administrative offices of the school will be in Seashore Hall.

Department of Dance

The Department of Dance is the least-affected by the flood, although the closure of Hancher Auditorium has led to the relocation of the annual Dance Gala to Space/Place Theatre in North Hall. Halsey Hall escaped damage, so dance offices and classes will be in their normal locations.

Music

	The walls of the School of Music's temporary practice and rehearsal building get a fresh coat of paint. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

The School of Music faced a particularly large challenge, needing specialized spaces for individual practice, group rehearsals, and performances. Two buildings near the Iowa City Main Post Office and Johnson County Courthouse—Clinton Street Music 375 and 376—have been fitted for practice and rehearsal spaces. In addition, an array of community groups—schools, churches and businesses—opened their doors to take in departments, resulting in the school being spread across Iowa City. A complete list of facilities is available at www.uiowa.edu/~music/floodblog.htm.

Administrative offices and academic faculty offices are located in the Lindquist Center.

Department of Theatre Arts

The Department of Theatre Arts main offices have been relocated to Brewery Square on North Linn Street, above the restaurant Devotay. Classes will be held there, in Van Allen Hall, and in North Hall. The fall semester production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters will be performed in the Little Theater at West High School, and some other performances will be presented at Riverside Theatre. The Theatre Building may be ready for limited habitation by January, and spring semester productions are tentatively planned for Thayer Theater in the Theatre Building.

UI Museum of Art

Works of art have been safely evacuated from the Museum of Art, and the University’s collection is in secure storage facilities in Iowa City and Chicago. For the foreseeable future, Museum of Art events and a limited exhibition program will be offered at the Old Capitol.

Hancher Auditorium

Hancher’s offices and temporary box office are located in the Lindquist Center, and 17 events will be presented at venues throughout the Iowa City/Coralville area. (Click here to see related story.)

by Peter Alexander