San Diego Performing Arts Foundation Shuts Down

After three weeks of threats that the end was near, the San Diego Foundation for Performing Arts announced Wednesday that it is closing its doors for good.

Falling $63,000 short of the $200,000 needed to survive, the foundation canceled upcoming appearances by the Mark Morris Dance Group, Kodo Drummers, Paul Taylor Dance Company and Miami City Ballet. Speaking in somber tones, Executive Director Fred Colby said that the foundation will not reopen under any circumstances.

At a press conference in the foundation offices, Colby lashed out at San Diego for not supporting the arts more actively.

“San Diego, wake up!” Colby said. “If you don’t help to preserve and protect that which makes our city special, you are going to be surprised to find it all gone some day.”

The impact of the foundation’s closing may not be just local, other presenters say. The 10-year-old foundation, which has an annual budget of $1.4 million and a deficit of $265,000, has been one of the major presenters of dance in Southern California, bringing in a roster of blue-chip companies that included the Kirov Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham and the Joffrey, among others, and many of those tours included other stops in California.

Marcia Preiss, touring agent of the Miami City Ballet, said dance companies are hard hit by such closings. The Miami company not only will lose the $50,000 fee that it would have gotten for the three-night stand in San Diego, but also still will have to pay its dancers $25,000 because of their contract for a monthlong tour. The Miami company has been especially hard hit by recent events in Southern California: It had been scheduled to appear at UCLA in May, but those appearances were canceled because of the riots, amounting to a loss of $50,000 for the company.

“A tour is very delicately put together. It’s put together two years in advance. Each part has to work together with every other part. When it all comes together, it works; when any one part falls apart, you’re in trouble,” Preiss said. She said that despite the cancellation, the company’s April, 1993, tour will go on, but the company faces financial problems, particularly since Miami’s donors also were hard hit by Hurricane Andrew.

Tom Kendrick, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, said that dance tours have been very vulnerable during the recession, and many touring companies are being badly hurt.

“I’m very sorry to hear it happened,” Kendrick said when told of the closing of the San Diego foundation. “It’s one more sign of the cumulative impact of the recession, reducing the number of potential venues for dance, thereby making it more difficult for those companies to come to the West Coast.”