40 YEARS, 40 FACTS

THE STORIES BEHIND THE IMPACT

1. The Center was 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.

2. For 30 years, the Center’s ballroom and galleries in the former Sullivan School building served as venues for performances, exhibitions, arts-education programming and community gatherings. In July of 2013, the non-renewable lease for the Sullivan School space expired and the Center was in need of a new home.

3. After its lease expired in 2013, the Center moved to a temporary office for five years. 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.

4. In 2017, the Center moved into its new home at 33 Hawley, a project of the Northampton Community Arts Trust. The building was opened in phases, and in 2017 only two spaces were open and usable, with much of the building still under construction. The Center operated in various stages of renovation/construction until December of 2023!

5. 33 Hawley (the Center’s home since 2017) was originally a lumberyard and later became a fitness and child care center before being purchased by the Northampton Community Arts Trust. The Center offers exciting community arts programming at 33 Hawley, and shares the beautiful building with Northampton Open Media and A.P.E. Ltd.

6. The Northampton Center for the Arts is dedicated to providing affordable space and fostering collaboration among artists, performers, and educators, while developing programming dedicated to arts education, multidisciplinary collaborations, and community connections.

7. Shawn Farley served as the Center’s director from 1984-1987. In the early years under her direction, the Center flourished as a creative space, and introduced First Night Northampton, an iconic community celebration.

8. The Center produced First Night Northampton for 32 years, from 1985 to 2017. First Night is the city’s annual, family-friendly New Year’s Eve celebration and fireworks display, and features hundreds of local artists performing in dozens of venues throughout Northampton. After moving to 33 Hawley, the center handed First Night over to the City of Northampton's Arts Council in 2018.

9. Rachel Stevens’ journey with the Northampton Center for the Arts is a testament to a lifetime of creativity and connection. From her early days as a young performer to becoming a lifelong audience member, board member, renter, and the founder of our beloved Art Card program, Rachel has worn many hats—including current Clerk, former President, and most importantly, Mom to a new generation of participants.

10. In 1995, the Northampton Center for the Arts asked long-time Connecticut River Valley jazz producer Glenn Siegel to produce a solo piano series, and A World of Piano was born.The series resumed in 2003 and continued until 2013, when NCFA lost its former space on South St. Now firmly re-established at 33 Hawley, A World of Piano happens each year in February.

11. Penny Burke served as executive director of NCFA from 2004 to 2019, and transformed NCFA into a thriving organization, introducing flagship programs like Arts Night Out and the Ice Art Festival. With her can-do attitude and financial wizardry, Penny put the Center in excellent shape to weather the transition from old home to new home at 33 Hawley.

12. For more than 10 years and until the Center left its former home, the Young People’s Performing Arts Series welcomed area preschool children and their teachers to monthly performances of music, storytelling, dance, puppetry and theater in the Center’s beautiful ballroom—all created by local artists! The program offered very young children the exciting experience of going to the theater, free of charge. We continue our commitment to youth and intergenerational programming in our current home at 33 Hawley.

13. NCFA supported the launch of Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra, a unique ensemble first envisioned/directed by Peter Blanchette and now led by Joseph Ricker, helping it secure rehearsal space, nonprofit status, and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Over 100 local musicians have been part of the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra since its inception.

14. The Lisa Leizman Dance Company has been in residence at NCFA since 2000. Lisa Leizman has been an integral part of NCFA for decades, and she has served in many other roles over the years, including dance teacher, Associate Director, grant writer, consultant and First Night button-counter extraordinaire.

15. In 2007, Peter Blanchette scheduled a meeting with Penny Burke to discuss his idea for the Bach Birthday Celebration. Peter and the Center went on to host the first-ever Bach Birthday Celebration, which became a celebrated event for classical music enthusiasts. 

16. Eli Todd Nemetz was a gifted storyteller whose passion for writing and New England inspired those around him. A graduate of the creative writing program at Pratt Institute, Eli received the 2015 fiction prize and described himself as being “interested in ghosts, accents, and weather patterns.” Eli passed away at 23, but his creative spirit lives on.Through the Eli Todd Memorial Fund, his legacy supports creative writing programs at the Northampton Center for the Arts, inspiring and nurturing the next generation of storytellers. 

17. In 2018, NCFA began building a regular presence at 33 Hawley for Arts Night Out Northampton, held on the second Saturday of every month, with refreshments and live music to accompany exhibit openings. In March of 2021 NCFA even hosted a hybrid exhibit opening with a video tour for remote attendees. Now hosted by all three building partners, ANO has become a robust monthly gathering space at 33 Hawley!

18. In March of 2019, NCFA hosted a 100th birthday celebration for Frances Crowe (March - August 2019), a lifelong pacifist, activist, and organizer in the Valley who requested that attendees march with meaningful signs for her birthday. Hundreds of community members attended to celebrate Frances and her work.

19. Joanna Faraby Walker served as managing director of NCFA for five years, from 2019-2024. Joanna was a thoughtful, steady, creative leader who successfully stewarded the Center through its regrowth at 33 Hawley, a global pandemic, and months of construction shutdown, as well as the development and support of many amazing performances, events, workshops and classes. 

20. During the pandemic, NCFA produced a four part series called Hawley Street TV, billed as a cross between Sesame Street and an online variety show, which featured short performances by local artists of all ages. These feel-good episodes were a balm in the early days of the shutdown.

21. At the Center, we believe that arts administration and curation offer an opportunity for care, inclusion, and challenging the status quo. As such, we are committed to an ongoing practice of dismantling patterns of white supremacy culture in ourselves and our organization.

22. The Northampton Center for the Arts Community Fund was created for people in the local community who need financial support to access the spaces and programs offered by the Center. The Community Fund has subsidized over $15,000 of tuition and space rental since it was created in 2020.

23. The Center’s adaptable rental spaces - The Flex, Eli’s Room, and Carole’s Dance Studio - are rented at below-market rate to individual artists. These spaces offer artists, performers, students, educators, and others in our community great places to host events and classes.

24. 33 Hawley sits on unceded Nipmuc, Pocumtuc, and Nonotuck land.The Center for the Arts established an Indigenous Land Acknowledgement and Commitment in 2022, and have invited renters, artists, students, and other building users to support that commitment throughout the year.

25. Although its mission is focused on supporting local and regional artists, the Center will occasionally present artists from further afield who have a connection to the Valley. One example of this is Juanito Pascual, a renowned flamenco guitar player who performs about once a year, usually accompanied by a well-known flamenco dancer, offering an exciting opportunity to connect with the larger arts community.

26. The Youth Performance Festival is a collaborative program of Play Incubation Collective and NCFA in partnership with Make-It Springfield. Now in its 6th year, YPF is a FREE opportunity for youth artists ages 8-18 to create original performance pieces with the guidance of mentor artists in the fields of music, dance, theater, poetry/spoken word, video/animation, and more.

27. The Northampton Artisan Fair is the Center’s building-wide art fair held annually on Small Business Saturday. With over 55 talented local artists and artisans selling their work, refreshments and coffee available throughout the day, and live music by local musicians, this fair has quickly become a seasonal favorite!

28. Stomping Grounds Dance Festival is a summer event that grew out of a series of dance performances created at the Northampton Center for the Arts as a vehicle for connecting the dance community across style, existing cohorts, geography, and experience.

29. ArtPlay, the Center’s unique vacation arts program, encourages kids to think of themselves as fundamentally creative beings with a fun, interactive, interdisciplinary approach. The program connects youth to local teaching artists and provides space and structure for youth-initiated projects, performances, and exhibitions.

30. 33 Outside is the vision of Center board member Carlos Rec McBride, a multimedia artist, educator, and DJ. He imagined an outdoor, family-friendly, community dance party at 33 Hawley, free and open to the public, where DJs from the Peace & Rhythm collective would spin “head-nodding, feel-good, body-moving music.” 33 Outside made its debut in 2021!

31. Smith College’s Jandon Center For Community Engagement collaborates with the Center to offer the Young Artists Studio series, where Smith College students, through the Teaching Artists Program (TAP), lead art workshops for children and families. This partnership brings Smith College’s educational resources to 33 Hawley, providing free, family-friendly art programming. The collaboration nurtures community involvement in the arts and offers Smith College students practical teaching experience.

32. The Center collaborates with Straw Dog Writers Guild to provide literary workshops and critique meet-ups for local writers, including a series of poetry critique sessions moderated by Michael Favala Goldman. These workshops offer writers constructive feedback and the chance to develop their craft.

33. The Arts Extension Service at UMass Amherst provides high quality Arts Management education to artists, nonprofit professionals, and UMass Amherst students on campus and online. Since 2021, NCFA has served as a case study for the UMass AES Arts Programming Class. Students meet with Center staff to learn about operations, and then pitch program ideas. They receive feedback over the course of the semester, with a final presentation for NCFA. Students also attend an event and volunteer 2-3 hours to complete a service requirement for the class.

34. The Flex is a beautiful and flexible performance and event space with adaptable seating, acoustical/theatrical curtains, a state of the art sound system, projector, and theatrical lights. The Flex has seen hundreds of dance, theatre, and music performances, as well as poetry readings, film screenings, art exhibits, weddings, birthday parties, and more!

35. Carole's Dance Studio, the gorgeous dedicated dance studio at 33 Hawley, is named for Carole Newman, who passed away in 2012 and whose life was filled with dance and the love of dance. Carole's Studio is home to dozens of dance classes and rehearsals each week, as well as studio performances on occasion. 

36. Eli's Room is named for Eli Daniel Nemetz Todd, who died at the age of 23 in Brooklyn, where he lived and worked. Eli was a writer and poet who, in his own words, was "interested in ghosts, accents, and weather patterns, especially in relation to his native New England...[and] was working on a collection of short stories involving those things." Eli's Room hosts all kinds of arts classes and workshops, performances and presentations, and NCFA's ArtPlay vacation arts program.

37. The Barn Door Gallery provides dedicated space to cultivate constantly evolving and transformative conversations between and among artists and viewers. Artists / Exhibitors in the gallery are selected by the Curatorial Committee. Any community member may apply to be on a curatorial committee.

38. After seven years at 33 Hawley that saw multiple stages of renovation, a global pandemic, a construction shut down, and enormous operational growth, the Center shifted to a co-directorship model, and is now stewarded by Co-Directors Kelly Silliman (former Program Director) and Heather Geoffrey.

39. Creativity and community are at the center of what we do, and all Center staff are also working artists. Co-Director Kelly Silliman is a dance theatre artist, Co-Director Heather Geoffrey is a visual and performing artist, Gallery Associate Joie Gonzalez is a visual artist and Rentals Director Melissa Andrew is a filmmaker and writer.

40. As we step into our next 40 years of creativity, community, and connection at the Northampton Center for the Arts, we’re thrilled to announce something truly special for 2025! On February 14, 2025, we’ll host our first-ever Queer Adult Prom! A joyous celebration of love in all its beautiful, vibrant forms, this event will be a safe, welcoming, and inclusive space for everyone to shine and share the love. Join us as we step into a bright, colorful future, together!