Temporary Stages
CONSTRUCTION on the office tower at 1 Bryant Park is about to begin, closing Chashama's avant garde theaters and galleries on 42nd St. Nestled among the most established theaters in North America, Chashama produced fringe theater and performance art, provided studios for off-beat visual artists and hosted the vaudeville burlesques of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. Yet despite its location, Chashama was largely ignored by the popular press.
Bindlestiff's final review had the sexiest striptease act I ever saw. Feather, aka Tanya Gagne, stripped off her business suit on a trapeze, down to her spangled underwear, then hung from the back of her head. Bleachers creaked as every one of us shifted in astonished lust. The gist of her passion play was that business was again crowding out art.
A good story, but not true in this case.
In 1995, when Iranian performance artist Reza Abdoh died of AIDS, Anita Durst, a founding member of his troupe, Dar a Luz, formed Chashama. "Anita's really good at bringing people together and getting them thinking about the same thing," says her sister, Helena. Anita and Helena are members of the Durst real estate family, and Anita asked her father if Chashama could have the store fronts he'd been acquiring on W. 42nd in the years before they were demolished.
Thus the Durst family donated space to the avant garde. Chashama's scene was reminiscent of Warhol's Factory, but more theater-oriented, more accessible, less tragically hip-and presided over by the ghost of an Iranian performance artist. As Durst acquired more lots, Chashama moved in more artists. There was a devoutly religious Jewish man who created life-sized sculptures replete with thorns. In Selftyness, a show Helena produced, the actors threw tomatoes at the audience. Cathy Nanda of Chashama estimates that as many as 5000 artists passed through during Chashama's eight years on W. 42nd.
Now that those storefronts are closed, Chashama has moved to 217 E. 42nd, and into rehearsal space donated by Bruce Ratner at 234 W. 42nd. They have also founded AREA (Accessing Real Estate for the Arts), a program that seeks to put artists into vacant properties.
Two weeks after Chashama closed on 135 W. 42nd, Helena Durst took me through the old space and then to see Chashama/AREA's new corporate offices on E. 42nd. She is responsible for the real estate side of the troupe.
Walking through the deserted rooms on W. 42nd, Helena explained "highest and best use," a term she uses when discussing real estate, to which she has an unusual, rather organic approach. The phrase refers to the use of space to its optimum for its situation and the community.
"I feel like a space shouldn't sit vacant. Because then it loses its value."
Art increases real estate value and invigorates the community and, in Helena's opinion, bringing artists, especially performers, into vacant business spaces helps those spaces achieve their highest and best use. When the area revitalizes, the art moves on. "It's very natural. Art has to move out and other things move in. But it's how the city transforms itself. I see art as the unconscious, the calling of the city."
Helena spoke of New York going through waves, reminiscent of how anthropologists speak of the growth and structure of cities. But her view is practical. Gentrification is a fact of life. Neighborhoods go up and down. Instead of fighting this process, as artists do when the rents go up, or merely letting gentrification happen, as landlords are content to do, her idea is to codify the process and find vacant office space, especially in transitional areas, for performers and artists from the community.
Empty space is an expense to a landlord through real estate taxes and the risk of squatters. Helena believes that it makes sense to put in artists. When business tenants begin negotiations for a lease, the artists will move on, helping real estate and communities to grow.
"Because of the unique position my family is in," she says, "I've had the chance to think about both real estate a little differently."
After Abdoh's death, Anita formed Chashama to carry on his improvisational ideals. Improvising as they go to fulfill what they perceive as a need, Chashama is turning into a performance art troupe that licenses real estate.
"You have to make sure that the artists manage the space. And that is where Chashama comes in. We want to make it easier for the landlord by taking a lot of the liability and management process off of them."
Chashama takes on the liability insurance, negotiates a small rent (usually one dollar) from the landlord, then licenses or donates the vacant space to the artist through a month-to-month agreement. Chashama itself would run off grants, any rents collected and a percentage of the box-office takes. I asked Helena if, beyond liability, there were any reasons other real estate companies couldn't get into this. "No. Except that they haven't thought of it."
Chashama hopes to obtain a space for long enough to build its own theater. Right now they have their eye on some spaces that may be put on hold for the 2012 Olympics. Meanwhile, they are getting letterhead and becoming more corporate. Chashama/AREA wants to create a recognizable name that people will look for. Helena hopes that, through grants and box-office takes, they can create enough revenue to cover their expenses. She feels strongly that non-profits should make enough to cover their expenses.
The New York art crowd is used to theaters and galleries that stay put, and typically laments when they move or close. Still, Helena isn't concerned about the problems that ever-changing art spaces might pose. "We want to draw the audiences from the artists themselves [through word of mouth] and from the communities. We want to really give people who are under-heard a chance to be able to go to their own show and not have only the choice of going to a Broadway theater, or to a theater that's not really for them or by them, but going to a theater that is."