Third place. Church. The perfect Seattle-sized choreographer’s “snow globe.” These are all ways that dancers describe the studio/theater at 1621 12th Avenue. Most recently known as NOD operated by eXit SPACE, the studio closed its doors at the end of May. Almost like energy vortexes (think Sedona and Stonehenge), sites can have energetic signatures reciprocally shaped by the community that uses them and the space itself.
For dancer Nikolai Lesnikov, the space first served as his high school gym when he attended the Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences in the late 1990s. By 2002, the gym morphed into a performing arts and multidisciplinary event space called the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Velocity Dance Center moved there in the fall of 2009 after a developer bought Velocity’s former home in the Odd Fellows Building and tripled the rent. From that point through eXit SPACE’s post-Pandemic stewardship of the space, the 1621 studio/theater became a nexus, in all senses of the word, for a large portion of the Seattle dance scene.
Dancer Kaitlin McCarthy recalls that when she first moved to Seattle in 2010 “It felt like a lot of dancers lived on Capitol Hill and it was kind of an arts central area.” Lesnikov even relocated “…to be closer to this space that I was spending so much time in. I remember religiously attending Dance Church [an all-abilities movement and dance fitness class led by Kate Wallich] on Sunday mornings week after week for years.”
Throughout its 16 years as a dance studio, 1621 offered a sanctuary amidst the chaotic Capitol Hill energy and dancers’ daily lives. Jenna Spinei, whose roles in the space included taking class, auditioning, performing, creating, and watching performances, said, “My favorite memory is just the arrival into the studio. Each time, it is grounding to land in a space where we gather to move, to practice, to hone our craft, to deepen, or to just let go.”
Both Velocity and eXit SPACE focused on adult dancers, beginner through professional, altering stereotypes of who dances and why. McCarthy, who taught beginning ballet and modern there since 2014, said “It’s important to shift away from this perception that dance is something you have to start as a child.”
Jay Shepard exemplifies this phenomenon. “When it comes to dance, I’m an adult learner. I decided about seven years ago that I was too young to spend the rest of my life regretting having never done dance. I signed up for the beginner dance series at Velocity…and I was hooked.” Shepard describes the extent to which the opportunity to dance impacted their life. “I moved away from Seattle for a while and when it was time to return, the first thing I did, before looking for housing, was look at the eXit SPACE schedule to see what would anchor me here.” Shepard went on to become the house manager of NOD Theater during eXit SPACE’s tenure.
Wade Madsen has taught weekly modern in the space since 2010. His intermediate/advanced class includes adults 18 to 70-plus years old, and he observes how dance boosts people’s success in all areas of their lives. “I often say studying dance isn’t about being pretty. Dance falls into so many other worlds. Any job you have, if you’ve had a dance class, you’re going to be better at it than somebody who hasn’t. You can read if someone is uncomfortable by where they are putting their weight. You have to take multiple pieces of information and feed it into one single thing.”
Additionally, people being in their bodies and moving together create strong community bonds. “It’s such an interesting, disparate group of people that have come together. There’s something kind of magical when [taking class] everyone just clicks in and you go, Wow, there’s commitment here! It has a little bit of a cult feeling when the music gets going.”
“It’s this ecosystem that has just evolved from day one,” says eXit SPACE director Marlo Martin. “You can’t dissect it down to one thing. It’s hundreds of people that make it happen and no one more important than the other.”
The site, too, had characteristics that energized dancers. The city view from the studio windows, through the seasons and over the years, underscored the preciousness of urban dance space. Dancer and teacher Tyra Rose described it this way, “My favorite is that you’d be teaching and look out the window and the sun is setting over Cal Anderson. It was just kind of like this euphoria. Look at what the universe has given us! We get to dance together in the sun!”
The studio/theater combination offered the rare opportunity to create, rehearse, and perform in the same space without having to adjust things like spacing. “I like to think about choreography as a snow globe,” Rose said. “You’re trying to create a new universe and it was so special because you started creating that snow globe from the first rehearsal. It made the process richer. It kind of felt like sacred ground. Starting and finishing the process here felt like a ritual.”
The studio/theater’s multi-use aspect contributed to the vortex effect. “There’s a real exchange of energies,” McCarthy said. “I could come into the space on Friday morning, do Ballet Rituals class, come back on Saturday and see a show, and come back on Sunday and teach.”
Both Velocity and eXit SPACE’s stewardship of the space encouraged innovative experiences. “One of my favorite memories was Sh*t Gold,” McCarthy said of the community-run experimental performance open mic that ran from about 2014-2020. “10 p.m. Monday nights… A huge community of people came together in a highly supportive environment of anybody doing whatever they want, creating a sacred practice of experimentation.”
Often that avant-garde artistic play capitalized on all the building’s features helping to develop new performance trends. “I did work with Fox Whitney for Melted Riot and I thought the way we used the space was so genius,” Rose said. “We utilized the lobby and stairs. Site-specific performance art was happening. We were performing in the theater, but you could also walk into that back studio and there was an art installation. I remember being like, Whoa! This is a unique way of using space. As a young artist that was eye-opening, that we can take this out of the traditional audience/performer dynamic and make it more four-dimensional.”
For Martin, having full access to a studio theater fulfilled a life-long goal. An place where she and other dancers could easily make their own work however they wanted. “I produced two full-length works in this space,” Martin said. “My artist heart dreamt of the moment where I was like, What can I do with this space and who gets to say it’s OK? Me! It was glorious to be that playful. For Vessel I got to fill it with paper and just go nuts and change the floor white. I don’t think that will ever happen again for me cause it’s really hard to load into a theater and have it feel like yours.”
Martin found ways to make using the space affordable. eXit SPACE has “student scholarships, free tuition, and a Bipoc discount,” Rose said. “I always felt like NOD was a place that felt like it was accessible for an artist to make changes to their vision that was cost-effective.”
The theater at 1621 was a Goldilocks size. “I always felt like that space was the right size for local art,” Rose said. “Like sometimes I’ll go to the Paramount and can’t find the same connection. The dancing is stunning but I wanna see their eyes. I wanna see the sweat dripping off them. I wanna see the spit coming out of their mouths! I love that aspect of [NOD] theater because you could be close enough to get the humanness, but you could also sit in the back and see the patterns the choreographer put together. The energy was a little more palpable.”
Despite the obvious love for the space, closing NOD was best for eXit SPACE operations and Martin’s personal artistic energies. “I love producing shows. I don’t like running a theater,” Martin said. “The money it takes to run a theater…It’s like if an instrument breaks, who are you going to call? Your team starts to expand, which means your budget gets bigger.”
Renting out the theater to other companies became more work than an income stream. While most treated the space well, there were also plenty of times when Martin and team would have to reprogram a fixture or when someone used a fog machine (explicitly prohibited in the contract) and ruined the marley. “How do you put out fires every day,” Martin said. “I couldn’t be where I’m best. I love teaching, creating work and opportunities for people in programming. I think that’s my gift and my power.”
Between the overhead costs of approximately $20,000 a month and the security and theater operation headaches, it made sense to close the space. Martin was able to maintain all eXit SPACE programming in her Green Lake locations. Madsen and McCarthy chose not to teach in Green Lake for various personal reasons, but will both continue teaching and working in other places.
“The space was a big part not just of my career, but my whole becoming who I am,” said McCarthy. “It’s sad to see it go of course, but in some ways maybe the space availability needs to flex toward the North or South of the city where it is more affordable.”
It will take time for the community to adjust to the closure of a place that was so integral to dance in Seattle for so long, dancer Naphtali Beyleveld reflects. “Getting to play and make together is so, so special and life giving. It feels a little like I’m missing a limb right now.”
Lesnikov agrees. “NOD’s closure will leave a big void for those of us who hold so many important memories of joy, connection, and growth in that space. Nevertheless, I trust that the dance community will continue to thrive and find new spaces and ways to come together in movement.”
Madsen put it this way, “There was a gal who did a piece at Cornish and she said, ‘Yesterday is as far away as the furthest galaxy.’ I love that because the past is past. Every moment is so far the minute you leave it.”
As one of Madsen’s students myself, I think about how he talks about a dancer’s relationship to space. He encourages us to shape space as we move. Maybe in this case, when the space changes, we can think of it this way, “That’s the way life goes,” Madsen said. “Maybe that’s one of the good traits about being a dancer—going with the flow. Things change.”
Featured photo: view out the West windows of 1621 12th Ave during sunset.
