Dance 10 at the Dr.Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

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Dance 10 featured 80 dancers who performed at the Disney Theater in the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (455 S. Magnolia Avenue Orlando FL.) The performance was one of many during the week long UCF Celebrates the Arts. In the spring of 2015, the university launched this

festival to celebrate UCF’s visual and performing arts through plays, exhibitions, and musical performances.

For its second year, the School of Performing Arts and the School of Visual Arts and Design, in

collaboration with community and university partners, has prepared a showcase of UCF’s

vibrant disciplines to delight and educate audiences. The festival included over 30 performances by Theatre students and Music students, as well as gallery and interactive exhibitions by student visual artists. The showcase brought to Central Florida a celebration of the talent, creativity, and dedication of the school’s student artists. 

The Disney Theater was packed for Dance 10. I had to find a spot in the nose bleed seats. Many of the people  in the audience around me seemed like they might be dancers themselves. With the low light, I  painted the scene with just the three primary colors, red yellow and blue. It was a good lesson in leaving out local colors like the colors of a dress or the tint of a blouse, and instead just focusing on large washes to cover the page quickly. Photography and video wasn’t allowed but no one mentioned that art could not be created at a festival of the arts.

Beautiful Together before the show.

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After the Beautiful Together rehearsal at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, all the performers were served dinner and some waited in the loading dock area. The fellow in the foreground was with the chorus that was in the upper platform on stage. The conductor gave him a compliment saying he had the most impressive facial hair.

After eating, many performers posed for photos and selfies. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra storage crates cluttered the space. Several women eating dinner were at a table near a large electronic door. A stage hand hit the button to lower the steal door and the surprised performed dodged away to avoid getting crushed. In the green room down the hall, a TV showed dance in on stage performing an improvised dance. I thought in was a recording but it was actually a live stream of Yao dancers on stage as a pre-show at the audience entered the Disney Theater.

I was sitting with Carolyn Blice, a Philharmonic French Horn player. When she saw orchestra members walking on stage on the TV, she realized she better gel on stage. I used that as my clue to go into the theater as well. I was excited to see the performance along with a full audience.

Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center

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Rachel Steele invited me to go to the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center construction site for a hard hat tour. Site supervisors Joe Brown and Joe Westgate met us in one of the construction site trailers. Rachel and I were issued reflective vests and hard hats. I had been instructed to wears long pants and close toed shoes. Since I always wear hiking boots, it was easy to comply.  I was read some safety instructions and then we were off.

We walked the muddy path to the Arts Center’s skeletal structure. With Isaac looming in the Caribbean, Rachel asked how the  construction cranes ride out a hurricane. Joe explained that they are loosened and allowed to swing freely in the wind like a weather vane. Two towers stood apart from the rest of the theater complex. These will one day be stair wells. A large iron grid work structure was being assembled on the ground and it would be raised up to act as a support between the stairwell and the theater entrance. One such structure was already in place. We walked to the southern edge of the site to get a view of the Disney Theater that will seat 2700 people when it is complete. The proscenium was in place but re-bar was still being placed for the seating area. A large orchestra pit was lined in cement and a few balconies were assembled at the back of the hall. This space is intended for amplified performances including concerts, children’s shows and Broadway productions.

A smaller community theater will be in the center of the complex. Seating 300 people, the Jim and Alexis Pugh Theater will have a thrust stage for more intimate productions. A third Multi-Form Music Hall has yet to be started. Seating 1700 people it is impressive in that central seating rows can literally flip over using hydraulics to open up the space and even the walls move to adjust the space. A building was just demolished where this state of the art theater will stand but construction can not begin until more funds are raised.  The city is going to issue bonds to help raise funds. Construction on the two theaters started along with an arts education area and a huge outdoor plaza is slated to be completed by April of 2014. It was exciting to be on site imagining the future. Up in the Arts Center’s offices in the round building on the corner of Anderson and Orange Avenue, I met the Arts Center mascot, a calm white bull dog named Lilly. From the top floor, I had an amazing view of the whole construction site. Dark clouds loomed slate grey behind the city hall as wind whipped sand and grit in my eyes as I leaned into the wind to get back to my car. Children’s art whipped in the wind fluttering on the fence surrounding the site.