SOTA has been a boon to Tacoma's arts community

One of the reasons Tacoma’s School of the Arts was started was to integrate arts with core academics in a setting that made sense: Tacoma’s downtown, the heart of its arts scene.

When SOTA began in 2000, that arts scene looked very different than it does today. There was no Museum of Glass, the Tacoma Art Museum had a much smaller presence, and cutting-edge galleries such as Flow and Fulcrum were nowhere to be seen. The Broadway Center was running at about a third of its current programming, and the only downtown dance company was Tacoma City Ballet.

How much of that growth in the arts scene can be credited to SOTA? Plenty, say local arts organizers. SOTA students attend local arts performances. They serve as hard-working interns at arts organizations, and may later become employees. They often bring their talents to local performance stages. And the school itself serves as a new venue.

SOTA also has boosted the downtown economy. The influx of students, staff and families populate the streets and buildings, and the money they spend helps local businesses.

“SOTA has exceeded everyone’s expectations,” said David Fischer, who directs the Broadway Center (including several SOTA interns and employees) and who sat on the initial SOTA steering committee. “They bring the energy of student life ... and feed the system of arts into the university level. It’s a cycle that has an impact around the country.”

The impact is multiplied for arts groups. One example of SOTA’s influence is its relationship with MLKBallet.

“It definitely made a difference,” said Kate Monthy, founding director of MLKBallet, which offers free ballet classes downtown and presents regular contemporary dance performances featuring its own students, SOTA students and the MLK school’s MOVE!NG company professional dancers.

From MLKBallet’s beginnings in 2005, the nonprofit was associated closely with SOTA. One of the co-founders, Alexa Folsom-Hill, manages SOTA’s partnership program with local businesses. When MLKBallet’s intended space in a renovated Hilltop church fell through, MLKBallet was able to make arrangements to use the SOTA black box theater. Without that agreement, the company would have found it difficult to continue.

SOTA also increases the audience for Monthy’s company.

“Having SOTA students presenting SOTA work (at MOVE shows) – it helps to bring the dance audience,” Monthy said. “I also see SOTA students out and about at difference arts events. It’s really grown a younger crowd. They’re active volunteers in the art world, when I didn’t see that before. And I think it lasts beyond school. It’s pretty cool.”

SOTA dance teacher Robin Jaecklein agreed.

“I create a lot of arts appreciators, whether they become dancers or not,” she said. “They remember creating work, remember the venues.”

SOTA also has helped bring dancers to MLKBallet. Monthy said she’s had around seven company dancers come from the school’s graduate ranks over the last six years. (The MOVE!NG company has about nine dancers at any one time.)

One of those is Shelby Alexander, who finished at SOTA last year, and is now dancing in Tacoma and getting ready to attend Bastyr University. With only one public performance per semester at SOTA, Alexander said she really appreciated the chance to dance with a professional company such as Monthy’s and wishes there had been even more opportunities for it.

Monthy is grateful for the relationship she’s built with fellow choreographer Jaecklein, whose work has been featured on several MOVE programs, and said the school also gains from the partnership. “SOTA benefits from having professional dance companies interact with students.”