By SHARON EBERSON

The four-day symposium hosted by the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater will be filled with performances and legacy showcases, but the focus is the way forward for the East Liberty theater.

The title Owning Our Future: A Symposium on BIPOC Institutional Ownership, May 15-18, 2025, reflects an organization on the move, and not just on the stage. The event has been in the planning for nearly four years, an undertaking whose scope grew out of necessity and determination to remain in the East Liberty neighborhood where it began, in 2001.

“The reality is that our lease expires in 2029, and there is no opportunity to extend that, and no opportunity to purchase the building,” said Joseph Hall, co-executive director of the Kelly-Strayhorn, located in a 111-year-old former movie theater at 5941 Penn Avenue, between North Highland Avenue and North Whitfield Street. 

Named for the legendary Pittsburgh artists Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn, the nonprofit community performing arts center’s mission has been “fostering bold and innovative artistry with a global perspective.”

McKnight Realty Partners owns the property on Penn Avenue, including three other buildings, and plans to redevelop it with retail space and apartments, PublicSource reports. 

The Kelly-Strayhorn leases the nearby Dance Alloy Studio building, at 5530 Penn Avenue from the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, after a merger in 2011. KST is “committed” to staying in the neighborhood, Hall said, and currently is “exploring an opportunity in the East End.” 

“We are looking at what was at first a challenge as really an opportunity, because, as we’ve said before, the theater is wonderful, but it has great limitations.”

As a movie theater built in the last century, it “did a fantastic job of serving audiences then. But how might we better serve audiences in 2025?,” became the central question Hall and co-executive director Melanie Paglia are asking. 

The theater space, which is at the end of a long lobby, was renovated for a focus on dance, and lacks a “fly system” for lighting and scenery, and has limited space in the wings. The hope is to gain an inviting, agile space that would allow for a curated, “360 degree experience,” that includes activities before and after performances. 

With the symposium days away, the current lobby area is being transformed into a lounge, with “lots of furniture, couches, rugs, all that stuff, and a small stage as well for some performances,” a hint of what Hall hopes the future might look like. 

The theater has long held multi-day events at this time of year, such as metamorphosis: a daring emergence, co-presented with Dreams of Hope last year. In past years, KST has presented seasonal festivals, such as the newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival and Sunstar.

“We do have, in our history, a festival that used to happen called the New Moves Contemporary Dance Festival, when I was with the organization from 2009 to 2014, and then I came back in 2020 – a similar story for my co-executive director, Melanie. So we have a kind of history of doing a large multi-day event in May, which was kind of nice to return to with this symposium.”

For 2025, the title and focus was arrived at “as really a priority of our strategic plan, that we needed to have a conversation around what it means for Black, Indigenous and People of Color [BIPOC] to own our brick and mortar spaces. And it couldn’t come at a better time,” Hall said. 

The Kelly-Strayhorn, just a few days prior to this interview, was one of hundreds of arts groups to receive an email from the National Endowment of the Arts, rescinding a programming grant. Many arts organizations are under scrutiny from funders, with the current administration’s politicization of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Promotions for the May event explain that the Kelly-Strayhorn is “leading a groundbreaking national symposium that aims to reshape the future of accessible, equitable cultural spaces owned and anchored by BIPOC communities.”

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

MAY 15: Lisa Yancey, the opening-day keynote speaker, co-presented with the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. Yancey, president of Yancey Consulting, co-founder of The We’s Match – “Dedicated to the SCALE, WEALTH, and WELLNESS of Black women entrepreneurs” – and The DASH, “will examine cultural strategy as a tool for a thriving Pittsburgh.”

May 16: Shyla Spicer, president and CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF), reflects on the organization’s major expansion of assets and the significance of reclaiming space for Indigenous artists.”

May 17: F. Javier Torres-Campos, described as a “philanthropic leader dedicated to liberated, self-determined futures. [He shares] learnings from the field about what contributes to involuntary displacement, highlights effective preservation strategies, and explores the importance of ownership models for cultural preservation.”

May 18: Andy Shallal, draws from his experience building Busboys and Poets, with eight locations in and around Washington, designed as a restaurant, bar, bookstore and community gathering place. “Andy highlights how intentional spaces can ignite activism, equity, and resilience, shaping a future where Black and Brown-led arts institutions thrive.”

The ticketed symposium, open to the public and available via live stream, will include anyone interested to “heads of Chambers of Commerce.”

“I think this can be a conversation, of course with folks who are steeped in the arts community, but also entrepreneurs,” Hall said. “I think many times our restaurants can be cultural spaces. There are other forms of cultural spaces than art-specific organizations.”

Panel discussions include topics such as “Transformative Operational Practices”; “Radical Financial Innovations”, and “Envisioning the Future: Designing Community-Centric Spaces for Cultural Empowerment.”

The performance showcase portion of the event, on Friday and Saturday, will feature artists with long-standing relationships to KST, performing excerpted works of dance and theater “that speak to artistic development in Pittsburgh, with an eye towards the national and international stage.”

Performers include dancers from A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham, highlighting the work of Pittsburgh native and acclaimed dancer-choreographer Kyle Abraham. Other artists at the symposium include Balafon West African Dance Ensemble, with Oronde Sharif; Alisha Wormsley & Jasmine Hearn; Jesse Factor, Sidra Bell Dance New York; and PearlArts Movement & Sound.

ENVISIONING A NEW SPACE

“This is a good place to add that the arts are a huge economic development powerhouse,” Hall said, when asked about the breadth of the symposium and out-of-town participants.

He points out tha out-of-town participants will be housed within walking distance, at East Liberty’s Indigo Hotel, dining nearby, so that “The symposium alone will have an economic impact.”

Visitors will have activities that stretch well into the night on Friday and Saturday, when the lobby-turned-lounge will include a DJ and live music until 11 p.m.

“We’re very intentional about that, because that’s how we envision a new space, the new theater – active from morning until evening,” Hall said. “We can be a space where seniors come in the morning, students from [nearby] Obama Academy come after school. …  Part of the symposium is kind of modeling what we’re talking about, for the future of the Kelly-Strahorn.”

TICKETS AND DETAILS

All Owning Our Future events will be held at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, with the exception of a guided bus tour with Terri Baltimore, which starts at the theater. A full listing of speakers, panels, performances and activities is available by visiting https://kelly-strayhorn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/2025.4.21_OOF_8.5×11.pdf . Tickets: Individual events ($15-$40); Symposium Pass ($150-$300);Livestream Pass ($15-75), visit https://kelly-strayhorn.org/community/owning_our_future_symposium-2025-2/ .

Categories: Company, Feature, Feature Stories, Our Posts, Show Previews

Tags: 2025 Symposium, Dance Alloy, East Liberty, Joseph Hall, Kelly Strayhorn Theater