Many questions, few answers, no shortage of opinions on plan for performing arts centre
Coun. Ken Christian writes From City Hall in rotation with other members of City council.
By COUN. KEN CHRISTIAN
/FROM CITY HALL (COLUMN) — Saturday night I found myself at Sagebrush Theater taking in the final act of the Beethoven Festival. I was actually very lucky to find myself there since it was sold out and the house was full.
Coun. Ken Christian.
Now I have to admit straight up that I am not particularly musical. The nuance between First Violin, Second Violin and Viola is totally lost on me. The most notable thing I remember about Beethoven was that he was supposed to have been deaf.
Yet there I sat, a Basketball Guy, at the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra hearing their rendering of Beethoven’s Symphony Number One in C major and Symphony Number Nine in D Minor cumulating in the ever popular Ode to Joy.
By that point the 40-piece orchestra had been joined by the lively KSO chorus with at least 50 members on stage. The energy and passion in the theater was palatable and predictably the evening ended with a crescendo leading to a standing ovation.
Bruce Dunn, maestro extraordinaire, stood on his conductor’s platform and was visibly pleased. So should he have been. Were he a basketball coach he could have seen that his team made all of their threes, played tenacious defense, drove the lanes cleanly and basically shot the lights out of Sagebrush Theater.
A festival is a bit akin to a tournament and you need to build on every outing and make it to the championship; once there, it is every coache’s dream that your players all bring their A game and it comes together much like a symphony.
Well, Saturday it was a symphony and Bruce Dunn and general manager Kathy Humphreys should be very proud to know, that at least in my mind, music imitated sport.
As I left the Sagebrush I thought about what it would be like to be leaving a new Performing Arts Centre. It is very clear that Kamloops has the talent. It is very clear that Kamloops residents are prepared to enjoy and support that talent.
What is not clear to me is who is in and what are they in for. Is this a replacement theater? Is it a massing of everything Art? Does it have a retail component?
Is it for residents to display their talent in dance, theater, music or magic or is it a place for residents to come a see travelling troubadours? How big is it? How do we get there? Where do we park? Where is the best site? Are there federal or provincial dollars at play? Is TRU a partner? Could it house a museum? Will there be a pedestrian mall and gathering place?
Many questions and very few answers, yet no shortage of opinions.
That is why I favored a study to make sure we get this right. Two hundred and seventy thousand dollars is a big ticket to anyone, but $80 million is a big investment and the study money, to me, is due diligence.
We need a business case that makes sense, identifies the partnerships and projects and reflects the needs of future Kamloops residents. When the study is done I fully suspect residents will have their say either by referendum or by reverse petition.
In order to win the day and Performing Arts Centre needs to make sense. So far the Mayor’s Task Force has done a good job identifying the issues and possibilities and now we need to hand it over to professionals to shape the vision. It is important not only to the arts community but also to business, hospitality, tourism and to every resident.
Saturday night the arts shone in Kamloops. If we get this right we can make Kamloops a cultural hub where the sun shines every day.
kchristian@kamloops.ca
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I sang in the chorus you listened to that night, thank you for your kind words. Yes, it was performed with passion and love for the music, and yes, I agree with everything you have to say about a new performing arts center. I found some of your questions interesting, as they are so easily answered;
“Is this a replacement theater?” No, not really. The Sagebrush is actually a High School Auditorium. It sounds like it and looks like it. We have never had a proper full size, proper sounding stage in this city. You can not replace what has never been. We have made do … nothing more. Even Vernon and many other smaller towns in BC have proper performance halls, it is our turn.
“Is it a massing of everything Art? Does it have a retail component?” If you want that, sure. We already have a functioning art gallery so that does not need to be a focus, and retail space if necessary, but what is needed is space for a music school and perhaps a dramatic arts club/group, and how about a proper office for our Symphony and its school?
“Is it for residents to display their talent in dance, theater, music or magic or is it a place for residents to come a see travelling troubadours?” Both. We need a stage for traveling music shows that dont fit in an ice rink, and touring theater and dance shows with complex staging that the Sagebrush cant handle, and an attractive place for both to perform in. There are many touring groups that give Kamloops a pass, simply because we dont have the room to offer them.
We also need a stage for our own homespun performers. This city has literally dozens of choral, music, dance and theater groups in need of a proper home.
You used the analogy of sports. I would suggest that Kamloops has done much to welcome sports into our daily life, and there are many of us that feel it is time that a little attention was directed towards the performing arts. We dont all play baseball.
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We cannot forget to put in a museum to showcase our long history in this beautiful city. We could even combine some of the existing museums in town. And a proper archives to store everything.
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Go for it! I’m 100% behind the arts centre.
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