A newly renovated studio in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside hopes to break barriers to creation by offering affordable rehearsal and performance space.

KW Studios hosted a grand opening May 26 to celebrate major renovations and improvements that the owners hope will assist underserved artistic communities create and perform their work.

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“The artistic process is important for the health of humanity,” says Barbara Bourget, who with Jay Hirabayashi co-artistic directs Kokoro Dance Theatre Society as well as co-produces the Vancouver International Dance Festival.

The pair worked with and used the performance space of a local contemporary dance group called EDAM (Experimental Dance and Music) until four years ago, when they decided it was time to give more to the artistic community by creating a space of their own.

“If it is to be, it begins with me,” says Bourget, who has been dancing for 63 years, since she was four years old. “You can’t complain and complain and then not do anything about the lack of affordable studio space.”

The City of Vancouver selected Kokoro Dance Theatre Society to become the primary tenant of 7,168 sq. ft. of office and studio cultural amenity space in the Woodward’s Heritage Building back in October 2014.

“People have been generous with their help because we’ve been working very hard not just to create our own space, but a space for the whole community,” says Bourget.

After nearly $1-million in grants and funding from the city, Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, B.C. Arts Council and Vancouver Foundation Bourget and Hirabayashi took on their first ever renovation project in order to transform the Atrium and Performance Studio into KW Studios.

The new 1,050 sq. ft. KW Atrium Studio on the main floor has a sprung dance floor and large sliding windows that open into the adjacent Woodward’s Atrium. The 3,802 sq. ft. KW Production Studio in the basement is fully equipped with state of the art lighting and sound equipment, public washrooms, a dressing room with showers, a recording studio, and an isolation recording room.

On the 2nd floor, the KW Workshop Studio is a 397 sq. ft. multi-purpose room for workshops, meetings, and small rehearsals.

“We speak from personal experience regarding the struggle to find affordable, fully-equipped rehearsal and performance space, which, far too often, becomes a barrier to creation,” Bourget says, adding that dance is even lower on the artistic totem pole in Vancouver, where choreographers are hard pressed to find the room to design their art.

That’s why she and Hirabayashi are offering flexible, competitive rates based on the specifics of proposed projects, time frame and demands of the space.

“That’s what artists do—when something isn’t there, they create it,” says Bourget of why she and Hirabayashi found it important to take on this grueling project themselves.

“Cultural spaces are really important and its artists who really care about it and do it really well, so why shouldn’t artists be doing it?”

On April 12, 2018, the Vancouver Foundation approved a grant of $225,000 for KW Studios Accessibility Project for a period of three years, but Bourget says she hopes KW Studios will be a cultural hub for at least 20 years, the guaranteed duration they have ownership over the space.

The City of Vancouver’s DTES Plan includes Arts and Culture as a key component of the revitalization of the neighbourhood. In addition to the launch of KW Studios, the event was also the official unveiling of the commissioned 38' x 13' Urban Weave DTES mural painted by Richard Tetrault with assistance from Kee Toy Joseph.

The mural, located in the basement hallway leading to the KW Production Studio, was created with funding from the City of Vancouver's Great Beginnings Program that supports projects bringing life and beauty to the DTES.

