The historic Holiday Theater has officially reopened -- this time, as a performance space operated by the Museum of Contemporary Art.
On Thursday, an Opening Party for the MCA satellite venue in the Highlands/Northside neighborhood gave guests a sample platter of the kind of programming we might expect to see there in the coming months. Some of Denver's most celebrated artists took to the stage, including Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, Nathaniel Rateliff and poet Bobby LeFebre, who paid tribute to the history of the neighborhood the Holiday calls home.
The MCA had recently signed a lease for the Holiday in hopes of expanding their programming beyond their Lower Downtown museum space. The museum also hopes to engage more artists and community members in their programming by allowing local entities to rent out the space for their own events and projects. In the coming months, guests can expect local-driven events like a collaboration with Lighthouse Writers, an abstraction symposium, a teen-led film festival and more.
"The idea is that we'll turn into like a creative campus," said Courtney Law, a spokeswoman with the MCA. "This summer we're gonna open up our books for other community creative and art-centered organizations"
Guests flooded into the theater to enjoy performances by local artists.
First, MCA Director of Programming Sarah Baie led the audience in a moment of silence for Tom Robinson, a longtime leader in Denver's high school sports community and co-founder of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, who died earlier in the week. Then, Grupo Tlaloc Danza Azteca, a traditional Mexica/Azteca dance group in Denver, took the stage for a dance performance.
Colorado Poet Laureate Bobby LeFebre then performed selections from "Northside," his play about gentrification in Denver, with the help of Val Castillo. The play explores themes around the importance of feeling a sense of belonging and remembering what has been lost to time. Some passages reflected on what it was like to grow up in the Northside neighborhood and elicited shouts and cheers from audience members. Notably, one line mentioned the experience of watching Spanish language films at the Holiday back when it was a movie house.
For writer and performer Brenton Zola's performance, he split the audience into three groups and instructed each to make a different sound. He then conducted the groups to rhythmically chant their assigned sound so that all three groups together created a beat. Zola then performed a freestyle rap over the audience's beat about Northside, referencing local institutions like Lakeside and Chubby's.
After Zola, North High School's jazz band performed sets by jazz greats like John Coltrane, and poet Eleanor Perry-Smith recited three of her poems in a style akin to singing. Cleo Parker Robinson Dance performed dance numbers that were by turns somber and joyful, seeming both to celebrate life and to reflect on the loss of Tom Robinson.
Finally, the show ended with a surprise performance by Denver-based singer-songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff, who performed "And It's Still Alright," a song about finding hope in the midst of hardship.
The historic Holiday Theater building venue at 2644 W. 32nd Ave. was built in 1914.
It was later expanded in 1926, at which time it was dubbed the Egyptian Theater for its Egyptian Revival design, a type of architecture popular during that time following the 1922 rediscovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb.
The theater was renamed the Holiday Theater in 1953. Before the MCA started renting it, the building lived previous lives as a Spanish Language movie theater, a Peruvian restaurant, and most recently, the Highlands Church. It also served as an occasional location for the MCA's Mixed Taste events over the years, and will once again play host to the series now that the MCA is leasing the space.
The theater is now owned by the Denver Cultural Property Trust (DCPT), a group founded by MCA Denver Board of Trustees Emeritus Member Mark Falcone with the goal to help preserve historic properties while also keeping them in the hands of creatives and art-centered organizations.
The MCA signed a seven-year lease for the building's ground floor, which includes the 400-seat theater as well as an expansive lobby and bar area. While the MCA has intentionally kept the theater's historic Egyptian-inspired décor intact, they did make some other modifications to the building, knocking down some walls in the lobby area to open the space up, repainting some of the walls white and adding AV equipment and lighting.
In addition to the MCA's new performance programming, the organization plans to open the lobby space to community members. One section of the lobby has been converted into a classroom, which will play host to Creators Studio, MCA's new paid internship program for Denver artists aged 18-26. When the Creators Studio program isn't running, the MCA may use the space for the museum's teen programming, or else open it up to students from nearby North High School. The MCA also hopes to build a café and retail space intended to serve North High School teens.
Tickets to upcoming MCA Holiday Theater shows can be purchased on MCA Denver's website.
