Another Williamsburg arts mecca is packing up and saying goodbye to the nabe.
Triskelion Arts, a dance studio and production company, has signed a lease for a space in Greenpoint because, management says, Williamsburg rents are too out-of-control to allow for any kind of future there.
“Williamsburg is pretty shaky right now for small dogs like us,” said executive director Abby Bender. “We want more autonomy and more stability.”
The 13-year-old studio has a lease for the summer of 2014 at 106 Calyer St., between Banker Street and Clifford Place. The space will be smaller and the rent will be similar — Bender declined to say how much — but the studio will be in control of the entire building, as opposed to their current digs, where they share part of a floor in the four-story former Brooklyn Brewery building. Bender said she was happy about the new level of control the studio will have and the fact that the new space is owned by a local couple, rather than a large real estate company.
The new center will have twice as many bathrooms for what its web site says are thousands of dancers who rent practice time in four studios. The center hosts performances by over 20 dance companies on its two stages each year, according to the web site. The space hosts an annual comedy and dance festival and is home to a circus troupe, Cirque This.
One resident performing arts practitioner said that the move will not disrupt the center’s stability now that it is popular in New York’s dance scene.
“Williamsburg is too expensive now,” the choreographer Vangeline said. “The studios have a following and the location doesn’t really matter.”
The new space boasts improved creature comforts, too, according to the workshop’s web site.
“Like the current space, the new space will have lots of windows, although at the new space they won’t be broken, falling out and drafty!” the web site reads.
