Downtown Committee’s annual meeting concentrated on the union of arts and economics with four dynamic participants and three words.
Three words: More – Creative – Partnerships.
This year’s Downtown Committee meeting’s theme was Downtown: Arts Color Economic Growth.
A need to focus on the arts has been bantered about in Syracuse for years. After all this churning it seems to have finally risen to the top of the agenda. As the arts are definitely the fuel of choice for the Downtown Committee of Syracuse’s (DCS) economic thrust. Jim Breur the Chairman of the DCS said the revitalization of downtown has been closely related to the expansion of arts and education and cultural attractions.
Playing this hand the DCS brought in Will Maitland Weiss, the Executive Director of the Arts and Business Council of New York (ABC) as its keynote speaker. Weiss confirmed that this is a winning strategy employed successfully in many cities. The ABC’s mission is to cultivate and stimulate alliances between the arts and business. The crop is green, as in dollars also known as economic growth. This was John D. Rockefeller III’s vision when he started the ABC.
Weiss said you can do this here is Syracuse, “Three words: More – Creative – Partnerships.”
Films a feature
Interspersed throughout the DCS program were trailers from films that have recently been made in Syracuse. Some quite chilling, one decidedly sexy.
Oddly enough Syracuse already has a great reputation on the International circuit of independent filmmakers. Which with American’s hyper-focus on Hollywood, tends to get overlooked. But the non-Hollywood filmmakers of the world have a large economy that Syracuse has been aligning itself to access.
Maybe you have heard of the Syracuse Film Office? This is a partnership between the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County and the MDA driven by SYRAFest, Syracuse’s Film Festival.
Owen Shapiro, the artistic director and co-founder of SYRAFest, quoted Mallory Potosky’s April 20 article in Movie Maker Magazine, which called Syracuse’s Film Fest, “The United Nations of Film.”
“When one thinks of towns in the United States known for their international flair and diversity, Syracuse, New York is probably not high up on the list,” she wrote. “But when it comes to film festivals at least, it should really be one of the first noted.”
“This speaks to the validity of Syracuse’s Film Festival,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro then went on to explain the reality of Syracuse as a smart place to make a movie. Because as complex as Syracusans tend to be, the city itself is simple. Okay, maybe not simple, but easy. Not like the Big Easy, instead the good kind of easy. Easy to get around, easy access to sports, recreation, higher education and the arts. Easy on the eye with its assorted enclaves of gorgeous architecture. Easy to get here by plane, train or automobile. Easy to get out in to nature. An Easy place to think. Easy to find good eats. Easy to find talented, skilled workers and artists. Easy on a filmmakers budget compared to the big movie centers. Add all this up and Syracuse is actually an ideal place to make a movie.
At the museum
Everson Museum’s Executive Director Steven Kern, who reminded the audience that in the arts Syracuse is a city of firsts with:
the first museum to focus on American artists
the first museum to focus on ceramics as art
the first museum designed by legendary architect I.M Pei
All these firsts belong to the Everson, so he concluded that when one thinks of architecture in Washington DC and Paris they also must think of Syracuse.
He echoed Weiss’s “More – Creative – Partnerships,” and backed it up with statistics on the impact of the arts in CNY already. If one put all the Arts Council Organizations together it would be the 17th largest employers in CNY; The Arts generate $400,000 more in revenue than collegiate sports here in Syracuse; and the total impact yearly is $63,000,000.
“It’s all about cross promotion,” he said and cited the partnerships already in place for the upcoming Impressionist Exhibition Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces From the Davies Collection, National Museum of Wales this Fall at the Everson. Here the Onondaga Historical Association will produce an exhibit of what was going on here during the time of the paintings in the upcoming show; Syracuse Stage and the Opera are both staging related productions; The Warehouse Gallery downtown will exhibit contemporary artists working in this medium; and the area’s French Restaurants are working closely with the Syracuse Chamber’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to create recipes and menus for the occasion.
“In my experience, Syracuse, for a city of its size has it all,” he concluded.
SU’s Visual and Performing Arts to move downtown
Ann Clarke is the Art Dean at Syracuse Univesity’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. The thesis of her message was that her school, the largest professional college on campus, was moving to SU’s Warehouse on West Fayette and West Streets in Armory Square. This is part of SU’s ongoing initiative to stay engaged in downtown Syracuse.
VPA is actually creating its own Quad at the Warehouse and will serve as a base for any Syracuse University student who is wandering about or studying downtown.
“It’s going to be cool, hip, relevant,” she said.
In essence VPA is mobilizing its students and faculty to be engaged in the arts downtown rather than confined to a building up on the hill.
“This will be a training ground for future cultural leaders,” she said.
