What is the Northampton Center for the Arts?
We’re here at 33 Hawley to help our local Valley community members turn their artistic and creative dreams into reality. The Center’s adaptable rental spaces — The Flex, Eli’s Room, and Carole’s Dance Studio — offer artists, performers, students, educators, and others in our community great places to host events and classes. The Center also develops our own programming dedicated to arts education, multidisciplinary collaborations, and community connections. As experienced artists and arts administrators, the Center staff is uniquely positioned to support artists and makers in producing their own performances, classes, workshops, and events.
Want to dance, sing, act, or make art?
Join our mailing list and visit this website regularly to learn about classes and workshops.
Dreaming about teaching a class or presenting a performance?
Make an appointment with our staff by emailing ncfa@nohoarts.org and let us support you with turning your vision into reality.
What is 33 Hawley?
33 Hawley is the first project of the Northampton Community Arts Trust. Adapting the model of conservation and community land trusts, the Arts Trust acquired this distinctive, centrally-located, energy-efficient building, removing it from the speculative real estate market, to serve as a common resource, to be protected — in perpetuity — for acts of creativity and imagination. The building is stewarded by three long-standing community arts organizations who hold long-term leases with the Arts Trust: Northampton Center for the Arts, A.P.E., and Northampton Open Media.
33 Hawley is a fully accessible, ADA-compliant building. Bathrooms are labeled and include all-gender options. There is plenty of free parking onsite.
33 Hawley COVID-19 Information
The Northampton Community Arts Trust has rescinded the mask mandate for the building in line with City of Northampton regulations, but individual programs and events in the building may still require masks. The three spaces that the Center stewards (The Flex, Eli’s Room, and Carole’s Dance Studio) have HEPA filters running 24/7, in addition to the building's state of the art HVAC system.
Our Commitment to Antiracism
The Northampton Center for the Arts is committed to dismantling patterns of white supremacy culture in our organization, as well as amplifying the voices of our community members who have been pushed to the margins. And with humility, we understand that it is not enough. We often stumble over our own assumptions, biases, and racism. We strive to do better, and to use our privilege in ways that create positive change. We actively invite others in our community to build and shape NCFA’s focus and direction in order to center the voices of Black, brown, and Indigenous artists and educators. NCFA will continue and renew our focus on finding concrete actions we can take. We are dedicated to sustaining this work.
For more information, please visit our Antiracism and the Arts page, which includes our Indigenous Land Acknowledgment and Commitment.
What is the history of the Northampton Center for the Arts?
The Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established in 1983 as the result of a public/private partnership between the City of Northampton and the developers of the former Sullivan School in downtown Northampton. For 30 years, the Center’s ballroom and galleries served as venues for performances, exhibitions, arts-education programming and community gatherings. In July of 2013, the City of Northampton’s non-renewable lease for the Sullivan School space expired. The Center continued its work in the community by producing First Night, sponsoring Arts Night Out, supporting our resident companies, and organizing events throughout the Valley. The Center operated out of a transitional office at 5 Strong Avenue until its September 2017 relocation to 33 Hawley.