RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME

An art factory opens its dance floor. First up, skateboarders

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For skateboarders, an abundance of graffiti can be read as a signal that a space has been abandoned and left open to their wheels.

Similarly, when Mette Ingvartsen first visited Powerhouse Arts — a factory-size New York building in Brooklyn that was built as a power plant in 1904 and then became a squat before its rebirth as an arts facility in 2023 — the spray paint preserved on the walls was a welcome sign.

Ingvartsen is a Danish choreographer whose Skatepark (2023) transfers the rolling action, punk energy and social coherence of skateboarders into theatrical settings. The Grand Hall of Powerhouse Arts, with more than 2,000m² of open space framed by exposed metal beams and graffiti-covered brick, looked like a perfect fit.

“It was almost as if it was calling for Skatepark to be performed there,” Ingvartsen recalled on a video call from Brussels, where her company is based.

The man who brought her there, David Binder, had already been struck by the same thought. A Broadway producer who was the artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music from 2019 to 2023, Binder had been invited by Powerhouse Arts to curate a performing arts festival in the building.

When he first walked into the Grand Hall, what immediately came to mind, he said on a recent tour of the space, was Skatepark, which he had seen in Paris.

“That’s the opening show,” he recalled thinking. And so it was when Powerhouse: International opened yesterday with Skatepark. And until Dec 13, a dozen more events will follow — dance, theatre, music, genres both separated and mixed.

Recognising a decline in the number of international productions being imported by New York City institutions (like BAM), Binder proposed bringing in more. Most Powerhouse offerings are US premieres of large-scale works made in Europe.