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The Continuing Saga of Open Air Movies at Civic Center
Jan 22, 03:00 PMDear Denver City Council Members,
You cannot imagine my disappointment when I read the news Wednesday morning that the Denver City Council voted 8 – 4 to approve the contract with Open Air to show a month of movies at Civic Center Park.
Beyond city charter legal issues that have been discussed, the limitation of access to Civic Center park during the month of July, and the price of admission, members of the council failed to reflect on how the city has completely bypassed the local community, and has bypassed the opportunity to build some sort of summer festival at Civic Center that would benefit the entire community, including arts groups, local business, and citizens of Denver. In my opinion, you might as well prop our mayor up outside the City and County building with a sandwich board that says “Denver for sale, cheap!”.
The lack of imagination that is exhibited by this contract with Open Air, as well as the so-called Biennal Celebration of the Americas that is to take place during the same time, is stunning in its lack of outreach to the citizens of Denver.
If we truly want a vibrant and great city, we must do things that help bolster our local artists and business. For example, on the website for the Biennal Celebration of the Americas, there is the following paragraph:
“To raise awareness of the Hemisphere, the Biennial includes a wide array of arts and cultural programming. What better way could there be to get to know the 35 nations of the Hemisphere than to explore their visual art, performance art, literary art, culinary art, and beyond? Cultural institutions engaged in the Denver Biennial include, among others, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Museo de las Americas, the Arvada Center, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and one new cultural event – The Orchestra Project. “
The Orchestra Project? As Vice-President of the Denver Musicians Association, representing over 800 musicians on the Front Range, I have yet to find anyone who knows what “the orchestra project” is. Nor does anyone in the Mayor’s Office seem to have an answer for “what is the orchestra project”?
Given that the Colorado Symphony has recently suffered serious cutbacks, it would be nice if they were a featured part of the Biennal Celebration of the Americas. Now that could be an “orchestra project”. And there are many more local arts organizations that would love to be featured.
This is how we build a true community.
It only takes a few moments of thought to have a flood of ideas on how we could have a truly exciting summer festival of the arts in downtown Denver and around the city that would stimulate business and serve the artists and citizens of Denver. And the mechanism is already in place with the SCFD and DOCA.
On a personal note, in addition to my duties as Vice-President of the DMA, I also lead my own groups in the Denver area. Friends and supporters often ask me in these difficult economic times “Is it hard to raise funds for your group now”. My answer is that it isn’t any worse than the past 25 years that I have been working as an artist in Denver. In spite of the SCFD and DOCA, we never have developed a vibrant arts scene in Denver, and it’s precisely the lack of vision and creativity demonstrated by the city in this situation with Open Air and the Biennal Celebration of the Americas that continues to hinder us from building a great arts scene.
I do have some meetings with various folks over the next few weeks that might lead to some efforts to present local performers over the coming summer in Civic Center. But we are very much the step-child in this process.
I hope that in the future the Denver City Council will think more carefully of its responsibility to the citizens of Denver. I’m ready to help if any of you are interested.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Blomster, Vice-President
Denver Musicians Association Local 20
1165 Delaware Street
Denver, CO 80204
303-573-1717
blomster@dmamusic.org
Comment
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Thanks for your continued work on this matter. Like you, I am thankful and appreciative for the City’s long support for summer parks concerts, as well as event such as the former Colorado Performing Arts Festival and the Five Points Jazz Festival. These events were consistently free and open to the public. By comparison, the Summer of Movies is a corporate sellout of public space. The City of Denver will see only $300/day plus seat and concessions tax. Citizens will now have limited access to Civic Center and City Park for the next 3 summers while fixed bleachers occupy the space for those who are willing to spend $15 to $20 for admission.
We can hope for a handful of resulting job opportunities, but this already looks like a zero-sum proposition where other local events will only suffer an equivalent loss. There is nothing so far that will create or even stimulate employment for musicians.
As you know, I attended the City Council meeting earlier this week when this was passed. I hoped to voice my opposition, but was among a majority who never had the opportunity to speak because of a large audience of participants. It was quite evident to me that the majority of attendees were opposed to the measure. Most shocking to me was the fact that the strongest show of support for OpenAir was coming from the City Attorney’s table.
It’s obvious to me that this was decided months ago.
Pete Vriesenga, President, Denver Musicians Association
— Pete Vriesenga · Jan 22, 10:44 PM · #