EDITORIAL: Arts need new spots

Laguna Beach takes its art seriously, and not just art in two or three dimensions. This city is a hotbed of theater and performance groups of all kinds, including drama, dance and music.

But something’s got to give when so many groups seek space in the city’s limited venues.

Nothing highlights the effect of the city’s lack of public performance space better than the recent plight of the Laguna Dance Festival, which was denied the October dates it wanted at the community’s Artists Theatre for the annual confab of nationally prominent ballet and modern dancers.

The Artists Theater is a wonderful venue for smaller theater groups, but it is also the Laguna Beach High School theater and as such is in constant demand for rehearsals and performances for the school’s high-quality dance, theater and music programs.

The theater was funded by both the district and the city taxpayers and is supposed to be available for both community and school use. But sometimes demand outstrips availability.

When school officials felt they couldn’t accommodate the dance festival at the requested time this year, the alarms were sounded throughout the arts community. E-mails went out warning that the dance festival could be effectively killed if it could not find space at the Artists Theatre, because there is simply no other appropriate space in Laguna Beach for it.

Fortunately, school officials and festival organizers sat down and worked out alternative dates in September, so the marvelous festival is safe for this year.

And from now on city staffers will be in charge of assigning dates to community groups, so that burden won’t fall on school officials.

Ironically, the dance festival issue came just a week after the Laguna Beach City Council formed a subcommittee to explore this very problem. City Councilwoman Cheryl Kinsman has been vocal in her concern that lack of space could prove to be catastrophic for some organizations in the future, and she was right.

One idea floating around is that a spot for a new performance space could be found at the Aliso Creek property being proposed for redevelopment by Athens Group.

This sounds splendid, and would truly be a community asset. We’ve heard of another possible venue in downtown Laguna that could be available in the future.

With the way the performing arts are blooming in Laguna, it would be wonderful if both of these sites — or others — could be developed for community use, representing a quantum leap forward for the creative community.