Artisphere Will Be a Dance Venue

Arlington officials took select members of the media (read: not us) on a hard hat tour of the still under-construction Artisphere last night.

In her write-up of the tour, the Washington Post’s Jacqueline Trescott is skeptical of the county’s ability to finish the project in time for its scheduled October 10 opening.

Trescott then describes Artisphere’s effort to attract a younger demographic. Among the plans for getting 20-to-45-year-olds to participate in the arts: dancing.

Built into the programming, [Arlington cultural affairs chief Norma] Kaplan said, will be opportunities for interaction with the artists. “We are trying to attract audiences that normally don’t come into a cultural center,” she said. One idea is to have late-night dances, with regional bands, on the weekends.

The ballroom will have regular nights for salsa, swing and social dance, and Kaplan said she expected it to draw a crowd. “There will be live music 90 percent of the time. Dance is very popular in this area, but there aren’t a lot of ballrooms,” she said, describing the retractable bandstand as a “Murphy bed stage” in what is believed to be the second-largest dance floor in the area after Glen Echo Park.

Read more from the Washington Post.