The Joyce Theater (“The Joyce") is a 472-seat

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

performance venue located in the

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

neighborhood of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The building opened in 1941 as the

Elgin Theater The Elgin Theater is the former name of the building now known as the Joyce Theater, located on the corner of 19th Street and Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The theater showed films from its opening ...

, a movie house, and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82 to reopen as the Joyce Theater. The Joyce is a leading presenter of dance in New York City and nationally.

Creation of The Joyce

In 1977, the Eliot Feld Ballet had begun exploring more affordable approaches to presenting its annual season of performances in New York City. Rental costs and house sizes of the theaters available to the company made these seasons financially risky propositions.

Eliot Feld Eliot Feld (born July 5, 1942) is an American modern ballet choreographer, performer, teacher, and director. Feld works in contemporary ballet. His company and schools, including the Feld Ballet and Ballet Tech, are deeply committed to dance an ...

, the company’s founder and Artistic Director, and Cora Cahan, its Executive Director, envisioned creating a theater specifically for smaller dance organizations that their company could use, which would also be available to other companies. The first facility they looked at in late 1978 was the

, a defunct movie theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood built in 1941. They quickly commenced negotiations to purchase it, ultimately arriving at a price of $225,000 and concluded the transaction in January, 1979. The philanthropist

LuEsther Mertz LuEsther Turner Mertz (December 30, 1905, Cincinnati, Ohio – February 5, 1991, Port Washington, New York) was a businesswoman and philanthropist. She was the youngest child of a Methodist minister and his wife and trained as a librarian at Syracu ...

, co-founder of

Publishers Clearing House Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a direct marketing company that markets merchandise and magazine subscriptions with sweepstakes and prize-based games. It was founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz to replace door-to-door magazine subscription sales ...

and a benefactor of the company who had supported the renovation of the company’s studio, underwrote the full cost of the purchase. In developing financial projections for the theater, Feld and Cahan anticipated an inclusive rental cost of around $12,000 per week. In a national survey they conducted, 73 dance organizations expressed interest in using the theater at the projected rental rate. These findings helped garner a wide range of financial support for developing the theater. The project secured a $400,000 Federal Urban Development Action Grant, which recognized its potential to provide employment and add to the vitality of its neighborhood. Other Federal Government support included a $450,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a guarantee of a $600,000 bank loan. Private donors and foundations such as the Rockefeller Foundation contributed the balance of the funds. Feld and Cahan engaged architect

Hugh Hardy Hugh Hardy (July 26, 1932 – March 17, 2017) was an American architect, known for designing and revitalizing theaters, performing arts venues, public spaces, and cultural facilities across the United States. ''The New Yorker'' writer Brendan ...

of the firm

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates' (HHPA) was an internationally recognized American architecture firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Established by Hugh Hardy, Malcolm Holzman and Norman Pfeiffer in 1967 in New York, HHPA was noted ...

to develop plans for a gut renovation of the facility. Major changes to the structure included the elimination of the original balcony configuration to create a steeply raked seating area on one level, new construction at the rear of the building to provide additional backstage space, and the installation of a 67 x 36 foot proscenium stage with a

sprung floor A sprung floor is a floor that absorbs shocks, giving it a softer feel. Such floors are considered the best kind for dance and indoor sports and physical education, and can enhance performance and greatly reduce injuries. Modern sprung floors are s ...

. The completed theater had 472 seats. The overall cost of the project was $3.6 million. At the June 25, 1981 groundbreaking, the building was renamed the Joyce Theater after the daughter of LuEsther Mertz in recognition of the elder Mertz’s leadership support of the project. The theater opened with a gala performance on June 2, 1982. The Feld organization retained ownership of the building and created a separate non-profit organization to operate the theater under a 35-year lease at a nominal rent of $1 a year. As the 2016 conclusion of the lease term approached, the operating organization, the Joyce Theater Foundation, purchased the theater from the Feld organization for $20 million.

Governance and management

The Joyce is a 501(c)3 charitable organization whose mission is “To serve and support the art of dance and choreography, to promote the richness and variety of the art form in its fullest expression, and to advance the public interest in, and appreciation of, dance and the allied arts of music, design, and theater.” A 27-member Board of Trustees oversees the organization. It operates on a budget of around $10 million annually that is supported by earned revenue, contributed income, government support and endowment income. Executive Director Linda Shelton oversees day-to-day activities of the Joyce, supported by a full-time staff of approximately 45 people. Before joining the Joyce in 1993, Shelton was General Manager of the

Joffrey Ballet The Joffrey Ballet is one of the premier dance companies and training institutions in the world today. Located in Chicago, Illinois, the Joffrey regularly performs classical and contemporary ballets during its annual performance season at Lyric O ...

, and had earlier held senior management roles at Twyla Tharp Dance. Aaron Mattocks is Director of Programming, with lead responsibility for developing each year’s presenting season.

Main activities

The Joyce presents an annual 40 to 45 week season on its stage, hosting an audience of approximately 150,000 people. In addition to this Chelsea season, the Joyce presents or co-presents at a small number of other venues, including the

David H. Koch Theater The David H. Koch Theater is a theater for ballet, modern and other forms of dance, part of the Lincoln Center, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Originally ...

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

and alternative spaces. Through artistic residency and commissioning programs, the Joyce gives resources to established, early- and mid-career artists to advance their practice and develop new works for the Joyce stage. New commissions are supported by the Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Works, a $1 million endowment contributed by a Joyce board member. The organization also mounts a range of education, school and family programs that range from structured class visits to Joyce performances, to lessons at schools and community centers with Joyce-affiliated teaching artists, to family matinees with discount tickets for children.

World Trade Center cultural center

In 2004, The Joyce's proposal to operate a dance theater in the planned "arts hub" at the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

was accepted by the

Lower Manhattan Development Corporation The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was formed in November 2001, following the September 11 attacks, to plan the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan and distribute nearly $10 billion in federal funds aimed at rebuilding downtown Manhattan. ...

. The Joyce would have been one of several arts organizations at the facility, and proposed a 1,000-seat theater for major dance companies, with supporting programming. In the ensuing years, the vision for the cultural center has evolved through multiple iterations and tenant lists. It is currently planned as The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center, a multi-venue facility encompassing a range of performing and media arts. The Joyce's role in the current plan for the center has not been announced.

Former affiliated spaces

Joyce SoHo

In 1996, The Joyce purchased a dance performance and rehearsal facility at 155 Mercer Street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood that was owned and operated by the

Dia Art Foundation Dia Art Foundation is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Ménil, Dominique de Menil and an h ...

. The building had been used for dance since 1985, and was sold because of financial difficulties at Dia. The Joyce obtained the building for $1.5 million with support from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the charitable organization established by the organization's longstanding benefactor LuEsther T. Mertz upon her death. The Joyce continued Dia's program of rehearsal space rental and performances in the 75-seat theater until 2012, when it accepted an unsolicited offer to sell the building for $27.25 million.

DANY Studios

In December, 2009, the Joyce leased a rehearsal studio facility at 305 West 38th Street, in Manhattan's Garment District, that it operated under the name DANY ance Art New YorkStudios. The facility contained 11 studios. The Joyce did not renew when its lease ended in 2016 and closed DANY.

Selected companies presented at The Joyce

References

;Notes

External links

* {{Authority control Contemporary dance Dance in New York City Dance venues in the United States Theatres in Manhattan Performing groups established in 1982 Chelsea, Manhattan 1982 establishments in New York City 1941 establishments in New York City Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)