Opening night looked familiar at the Reverie (Image: Reverie Ballroom)

But change is coming with renovations, overhauls, and new paint (Image: Reverie Ballroom)

By Domenic Strazzabosco

Reverie Ballroom, housed on the second floor of the Capitol Hill’s Odd Fellows Hall on the corner of Pine and 10th, is up and running after taking over after 28 years of swing dance, waltz, salsa and more from the Century Ballroom.

“More than anything, I’m holding a vision of this place being a thriving arts center where people can come and try a little bit of all kinds of things,” said Eliza Wilder, the executive director of Reverie Ballroom.

CHS Seattle reported in January that Century Ballroom’s owners Hallie Kuperman and Alison Cockrill were not renewing their lease on the space and that a new group was stepping forward to continue using it in a similar fashion to the last three decades.

Though the transition happened on April 1, there wasn’t a single day when dance classes weren’t available. Wilder noted that since so much of the Seattle dance community relies on the rooms, she feared that even one day off would be too much for everyone. Continue reading →

DJ Kuperman saying goodbye to the Century

With the end of March, the Century Ballroom is closing but the dancing above E Pine and 10th Ave is still going strong.

The Reverie Ballroom is preparing for the next dance and keeping the Capitol Hill venue in motion.

This week, CHS swung into the Century as owner Hallie Kuperman marked another in what has been a year of final nights.

“I am djing the last Wednesday Swing dance that Century Ballroom will host,” Kuperman wrote about the evening. “It’s where we started (and I started) and where we’ll end this night.”

Continue reading →

(Image: Century Ballroom)

Wilder, Kuperman, and Cockrill — You can watch the announcement here

There is new hope for a new dance at Capitol Hill’s Century Ballroom.

Two months after announcing they would not renew their lease and were ready to end the three decade run of the popular dance venue inside Capitol Hill’s Odd Fellows Hall, Century’s Hallie Kuperman and Alison Cockrill have announced a group has stepped forward with a plan to continue the space’s long history of social dance while stabilizing the business.

“When we reached out to the universe and said, if there’s a way to save this space as a dancing space, let it come forward, and this person came forward,” Kuperman said in this week’s announcement.

The group led by Seattle event producer Eliza Wilder says it is negotiating a new lease for the building’s Grand Ballroom and West Hall and plans to fill the venue with dances and classes while growing the event space rental component of the business.

“I’ve been dancing at Century Ballroom for 15 years. It was the first place I went dancing when I moved here as a fresh-eyed 18-year-old,” Wilder said.

In the announcement, Wilder said she had been searching for a home for an event business — but never thought she would take on something at Century’s scale. Continue reading →

(Image: Century Ballroom)

Century Ballroom’s 28th anniversary on Capitol Hill next year will be its last.

Century’s Hallie Kuperman and Alison Cockrill say the ballroom, an arts and cultural center that has bridged any gaps between Capitol Hill’s communities with Tango, Bachata, Lindy Hop, Hip Hop, and West Coast Swing since 1997 is at the end of its latest lease. It will not be renewed.

“One of the things that is true is that the business — as this particular dream of ours — isn’t sustainable. It’s nobody’s fault. It is the way it is. We are very successful,” Kuperman said in a social media video with Cockrill posted earlier this month. “We are one of the biggest organizations, if not the biggest organization across the United States that we know of, that does all we do — only dance — with a bar and restaurant in this beautiful venue. And that’s our dream. And we’ve lived our dream for 28 years.”

It is “time to let that go,” Kuperman said. Continue reading →