CRESTVIEW — Visual and performing arts studios are blossoming on Main Street while new venues for dance and performance will create what will essentially be a performing arts district opposite the Okaloosa County Courthouse.
For Friends of the Arts President Rae Schwartz, the news brings opportunities for enhancing the community’s livability. “We are just really looking forward to all these wonderful new art businesses and what they will bring to the culture of the community and to our Main Street,” she said.
For the Economic Development Council of Okaloosa County, Main Street’s artistic renaissance makes Crestview even more attractive to businesses seeking to relocate or become established.
“Arts and cultural activities are one of those measures that companies considering an area look at to determine if that community can sustain their employees, not just in sense of a productive workforce but in their quality of life,” EDC Director Nathan Sparks said.
“Arts and culture are clearly quality-of-place components that companies place increasing value on,” Sparks said. “It’s not just about the community that can provide the lowest electricity or the best economic package.”
'TO ME, ART IS HEALING'
For almost a year, former Northwood Arts and Science Academy art teacher and media specialist Kristal Petruzzi and her husband, Tony, have renovated a former South Main Street bakery and donut shop into an art studio.
“I’ll be offering classes: a lot of kids’ classes and homeschooling classes, and mixed media classes for adults,” Petruzzi said. “It is mainly a teaching studio where people can come and take classes in all kinds of media, printmaking, painting, drawing and sculpting.”
Petruzzi hopes to open Happy Lark Art Studio in September. Plans include pottery instruction, and weekly opportunities for artists to walk in and let the creative juices flow. “We want to have an open studio once a week where people can come in and create whatever they like using materials in the studio,” she said.
Petruzzi says her studio will help people find their artistic muse. “To me, art is healing,” she said. “I think everybody has the potential in them.”
'WHY DON'T YOU JUST DO IT?'
Ryan Mabry, accompanist for Crestview High School's show choirs and pianist for the First Presbyterian Church, has always found comfort in music. As a CHS student, he sometimes skipped class to play Beethoven sonatas on the school auditorium’s grand piano. “God just put in my heart that I needed to do something with music,” Mabry said.
Realizing his job as a financial adviser wasn’t suited to his musical bent, a midday epiphany led to yesterday’s delivery of a grand piano to his new Main Street music studio. “I was at lunch a couple weeks ago and a friend said, ‘Why don’t you just do it?’” Mabry said of his decision to open his studio.
His emphasis on young children’s piano instruction is to keep the lessons fun. “I want to completely break away from the traditional student-teacher roles, where the kid is sitting there for half an hour and the teacher says ‘play this and that,’” he said. “I want the joy of music to be with them the rest of their lives. I don’t want them to ever become bored or disinterested.”
MARRYING MUSIC AND DANCE
Mabry's vision meshed with Mia Batson’s plans for Ballet and Barre, a dance studio — under construction below Mabry’s studio — that will offer lessons in classical, modern and Irish dance, among other genres.
By incorporating Ten Talents Youth Theatre and Mabry’s music, Batson’s studio will encompass multiple performing arts, she said. “When we do recitals we’re going to be incorporating all aspects of the performing arts,” Batson said, adding “The Little Mermaid” will be the studio’s first production. “We’re going to incorporate an acting Ariel as well as a dancing Ariel and a singing Ariel,” she said.
“One of the visions we see for this is really nurturing the performing arts, from music education to classical dance, contemporary, modern, lyrical, ballet all the way up to improvisational skills that are so prevalent in jazz, up to the beginning and higher levels of composition,” Mabry said.
“Dance isn’t just about music,” Mabry said. “It’s about musicality. I can’t think of a better marriage than music and dance. To have it come together under one roof is a blessing.”
'YOU WON'T WANT TO DRIVE TO DESTIN'
Two Main Street businesses are relocating to the same 500 N. Main St. block as Mabry and Batson’s studios. Fred Astaire Dance Studio owner David Colón said he is “almost certain” he will relocate his business to the former Harvest Vineyard building beside Ballet and Barre. “It will be both our studio and an events venue,” Colón said.
Around the corner, a two-story building on West Pine Avenue will become the new home of Casbah Coffee Co., whose owners are moving from 106 N. Main St., in September. The shop’s Kickback at the Casbah open mic and karaoke nights will continue every first and third Friday, co-owner Tracy Toannon said, but the new shop will have twice the floor space to enjoy it in.
“There may be other entertainment coming, but we have to grow in the evening,” Toannon said. “We figure there’s room to offer something in the evening. For a date night, you won’t have to drive to Destin.”
'GOD KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING'
For Petruzzi, being part of downtown’s artistic renaissance is an honor. “I’m so excited about our opening, but I’m excited there’s a music studio and a dance studio coming, too,” she said. “It’d be so awesome if more businesses came in behind us.”
For arts proponents such as Schwartz — also a Main Street Crestview Association member — the sudden burst of downtown artistic ventures is promising. “Between the studios, it will hopefully expand our opportunities for arts and other events on Main Street," she said.
Schwartz helped create the 2010 and 2011 Music and Arts on Main Street festivals that merged visual and performing arts while drawing people to Main Street in the summer months. Mabry said such outdoor arts celebrations complement the new studios’ goals. These projects are not just business ventures but beliefs in the power of the arts — and leaps of faith, he said.
“God knows what he’s doing, and I just couldn’t be more happy,” he said. “We’re all thrilled and elated at what he’s doing for our community.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
These downtown Crestview visual and performing arts studios plan August and September openings:
•Ballet and Barre, Mia Batson, adult and youth dance classes: registration now open; orientation, 6 p.m. Aug. 14, 306-3913
•Crestview Performing Arts, Ryan Mabry, piano instruction: open enrollment Aug. 10-19; Grand opening Aug. 28, 5:30-8 p.m., 217-4040, crestviewperformingarts@yahoo.com
•Happy Lark Art Studio, Kristal Petruzzi, visual arts instruction: opening in September, date to be determined, 603-2475.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Visual arts, music, dance flourish during downtown Crestview's arts renaissance (VIDEO)