Grand Opening
On Saturday, Oct. 17, the Sedona Arts Academy and Community Center at 7000 State Route 179, Suite C-100-104, asks residents to view the space, mingle, munch and imbibe. There will be performances throughout the day by the academy staff and community members, including a one-woman show on Harriet Tubman, Bossa Nova jazz, a DJ and more.
If Sedona needed another reason to be touted as an arts community, a new nonprofit in the Village of Oak Creek is the icing on top of the cake.
The Sedona Arts Academy and Community Center launched in The Collective last month and brought with it an influx of fine art, performances and opportunities for classes and events in the Village.
“The Sedona Arts Academy has launched itself as a community arts, performance and social center open to all residents, visitors and arts groups,” academy staff wrote in a press release. “SAA is excited to bring its visions of education, collaboration and innovation in artistic expression to the Verde Valley.”
Sedona Arts Academy President and Chairwoman Camilla Ross, who also runs the Emerson Theater Collaborative, said she has always had the idea for a multi-use, collaborative space for everyone and anyone to enjoy — A community center by day and event space in the evening,
“Why not share what’s in the community with everybody else? Everyone’s in their own silo, and they shouldn’t be. It’s togetherness,” she said. “I’ve tried to outfit [SAA] for everything we could possibly need in the community for people to use.”
“Everything” includes a black box theater with eight removable and
re-arrangeable stage pieces for theater performances, a full set of stage lighting and sound booth, a baby grand piano, a TV and walls of local artists’ paintings, photography and sketches.
“During the day it’s a community center, so people can come in and just relax, watch a movie, do whatever — you know, play games, have fun, bring your kids,” she said. “I’m trying to get a couple of foosball tables in here.”
There are plans for evening concerts, comedy shows and seminars, with classes in art, acting, music, dance and ballet, and health and fitness soon to come.
As a collective, the space is shared and rented by Emerson Theater Collaborative, the Sedona Chamber Ballet, the Sedona Conservatory and Shakespeare Theater Company — newly started by SAA’s Vice President and Vice Chairwoman Andréa Ferraz Bokenham.
Since opening, two ETC plays have already had multi-day runs. On Sept. 24, Los Angeles writer and actor Joshua Rivedal starred in his one-man show “Kicking My Blue Genes in the Butt.”
Ross produced the three-part i’Mpossible Project, which combined Rivedal’s performance with a suicide awareness talk and Q&A.
“I think it went really well,” Ross said. “I was surprised … we had pretty decent crowds.”
Due to restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of COVID-19, SAA allows a maximum of 35 guests are for the in-person shows. Temperature checks are taken upon entrance, hand sanitizer is available, as well as masks for guests who do not bring their own, as they are required to attend.
On the weekend of Oct. 2, several Verde Valley actors graced the stage with Diana Sons’ dramady “Stop Kiss.” They will continue with 7 p.m. shows on Friday, Oct. 9, and Saturday, Oct. 10.
Just a day after the show closes, the academy will host its first yoga class.
“We’re going to be doing music events outside, Shakespeare in the courtyard, jazz nights, movie nights … karaoke, even bingo for the elderly,” Bokenham said. “You know, programs for the community to be entertained and for us to provide that for them.”
Both Ross and Bokenham faced a similar dilemma after moving to the Village in 2015 and 2016; Ross from Connecticut and Bokenham from Los Angeles.
“I came, I looked at 19 houses in two days, and I found the house, and I said, ‘OK, where’s the theater?’ There wasn’t any,” Ross recalled.
“I was trying to get involved, but there was nothing substantial in terms of theater or community in the VOC,” Bokenham said. “I’m like, I have a master’s in theater — there’s no theater in this town. We’ve got to get something together.”
Ross brought ETC with her from the East Coast, where she had originally founded the theater company 10 years prior. For a while, the ETC shows were performed a stone’s throw away from where the SAA sits, in what is now the VOC Snap Fitness building. When the fitness center came, they needed to relocate.
“Here in the Village we don’t have a whole lot of space and to try to finagle to do a show and having to keep going and moving in different spaces, it’s not conducive to good business,” Ross said. “So I just thought, ‘You know what, why don’t we just try and do this now.’”
Suite C-100, the space that used to be the Sedona Public Library’s VOC branch and was most recently the Bearcloud Gallery, opened up.
“And so, I got together with Andrea and Winne Muench [of Sedona Chamber Ballet] and myself and we just said, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do ….’”
Ross said forming the SAA during the COVID-19 pandemic made things a little trickier but that the process was a creative one anyway, with flexibility built into it. With the center finally open, Ross wants to use the space as much as possible.
“We’re looking for artists that want to teach here. We’re looking for painters that maybe want to do a class — paint and wine or whatever. We’re looking for people that just want to do something in this space,” she said. “It’s a vessel for all of us.”
