SYMPHONY SPACE REOPENS WITH DANCE SAMPLER.

NEW YORK CITY--What better way to kick off a season than by creating an ideal theater for watching dance and hiring twenty of the city's top choreographers to perform there? It all happens May 15 when Symphony Space hosts its first Dance Sampler, featuring works by Ann Carlson, Elisa Monte, Murkofsky/Tsukayama, and seventeen other choreographers who range from hyperkinetic Donald Byrd to hip-hop master Doug Elkins.

Plans for the showcase began a year ago when SS's managing director, Joanne Cossa, invited Kay Cummings, the chair of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts dance department, to curate the theater's contemporary dance presentations. Cummings accepted because she wants "to give something back to the community by presenting work I really admire and respect and to help provide access to another dance venue in this city." Located on Broadway at 95th Street, Symphony Space will present dance as well as classical, jazz, and world music concerts; children's shows; and a repertory film series.

Although it's miles from the downtown area where contemporary dance thrives, the theater recently underwent a $250,000 renovation, making it "appropriate for dance," says SS producer Leah Streetman. "Scientifically placed" seats maximize visibility. "I'm a little person," Cummings explains. "I sat in the back and [even with a tall person directly in front] I could see the feet" of dancers onstage. In addition to the new seating arrangement, the auditorium of Symphony Space is now raked.

Streetman says Symphony Space's mission involves making the performing arts "accessible to all." In order to encourage attendance, all Sampler tickets are $10, and future events will also be moderately priced. Cummings explains her plans for building audiences: a triple bill of three established companies--Molissa Fenley, Doug Elkins, and David Dorfman--will take place in February 2000, to introduce the work of other artists to patrons who come to see one of the troupes. Another performance, scheduled for April 2000, will commission selected choreographers to work with a new composer, "an artistic matchmaking service," laughs Cummings.