The newly-renovated rehearsal rooms in the basement of South Hall appear, from the outside, in the guise of ordinary storage space. As in all attics and basements whose potential is not meant to be seen, the windows are covered from the inside with brown paper and the lights are out in the hallway below the eerily stenciled No Exit sign in the dorm’s main lounge.  Had we examined the rooms a few months earlier, they would have been cluttered with bed-frames and extra-long mattresses, obscuring what is now a bright, sunny space with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on South Quad. 

This week, student dance and theater organizations will begin to use these rooms in the basement of South to rehearse.

On Sunday, Feb. 18, student representatives from various dance and theater organizations met with the SPACE committee to discuss the opening of the South practice spaces. The group talked about keys and contracts in a victorious manner, having finally acquired their long-sought practice space.

“It’ll be a real student-run and administrated rehearsal space,” said the committee’s chair, senior Jon Levin.

Student groups were encouraged to sign up for time slots and to sign contracts stating that they will make proper use of the space. Keys to the rooms will be given only to the heads of the student groups.

The SPACE committee considered allotting one of the two rooms in South to dance and the other to theater, but after realizing that the two activities might require different amounts of time, they have opened up both rooms to both groups for the time being.

Student organizations will have priority when scheduling the South rehearsal rooms. Many theater and dance projects are only able to rehearse in the facilities provided by Warner, but faculty projects are given veto power over the usage of those spaces. Student productions often find themselves bumped to the Student Union or other locations. The move to a non-studio space is especially difficult for dancers, since a floor that facilitates movement is optimal.

Even the floors of some Warner studios are not properly maintained.

“There are little pieces of tape on the floor [in Warner] to prevent people from scratching their feet up,” said SPACE committee member and sophomore Micheline Heal, noting that the floors of some acting studios in Warner sometimes have nails or other such hazards.

The formerly concrete floors in South have been replaced with sprung floors, which are easy on feet and joints. The $40,000 floors were bought on credit, and SPACE is still working to gather the necessary sum to pay the bill. College renovation funds paid for the rest.

The committee’s obstacles in the process of obtaining the spaces have not been few. The roof of the space needed to be replaced completely, and SPACE was involved in continual negotiations with the administration to ensure that student needs for the rehearsal space could be met. The spaces are still not ideal — the committee has plans for sound systems, mirrors and curtains, when they can find the funds.

Right now, the rooms are equipped with practice cubes to use as set furniture. The SPACE committee hopes to obtain actual pieces of furniture as time goes on. In addition, they hope to borrow a piano for the space.

“This campus is made of pianos,” said Levin, when asked how difficult it would be to procure such an instrument.

The initial ideas for the renovation sprung up in a meeting with President Nancy Dye. SPACE meets with Dye twice annually to discuss its goal of a student performing arts center, and last year, it stressed the immediate need for a student-run rehearsal space on campus.  

Dye initially proposed the use of the South basement spaces, and SPACE agreed that it would convert well into theater and dance studios. They worked with Eric McMillion, the associate executive director of facilities, [f.c.] to plan the renovation.

The spaces have been through several incarnations in the past, including a dining hall, a temporary home for the Co-op Bookstore as the College made its transition to a Barnes and Noble and once, a rehearsal area for a senior project, before it was shut down due to various abuses of the space. These incidents, more than the College’s need for the storage space, gave the administration pause at allowing another group of students free access to the studios.

At Sunday’s meeting, SPACE committee members reiterated the importance of good behavior to representatives from various student theater organizations, and they are serious about it — there is already a stern, handwritten “No Shoes” sign on the door, and each group interested in using the space must sign a contract agreeing to abide by a set of rules.

“The way we’re able to use the spaces this way is by establishing accountability,” said Levin.  

SPACE hopes students’ good behavior will please the administration enough to draw up further support for its eventual goal of a performing arts center, but it stresses that a willing administration is just as important.

“We are continuing to impress upon the Presidential Search Committee the importance of selecting a president who will support the all of the arts at Oberlin, not just the Conservatory and the Allen Art Museum,” said the SPACE committee in a prepared statement.