Creating Transformative Art at the World Trade Center

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Bill Rauch, Artistic Director, The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center. While the Arts Center is under construction at the World Trade Center, it represents the opportunity to create transformative art at place with emotional resonance for our both country and our world.

12/4/19 #2264

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Welcome to One on One. I'm Steve Adubato. We're coming to you from the Agnes Varis NJTV Studio here in beautiful Brick City, Newark, New Jersey. It's our honor to welcome Bill Rauch, who is artistic director, the Ronald Perelman Performing Arts Center under construction at the World Trade Center. Good to see you, Bill. It's great to be here. Describe... it's called the Perelman? The Perelman. Make it come alive as we... by the way, looks like September of 2021 it should be opening? The 20th anniversary of 9/11, we're gonna have some kind of presence there. And the building will be fully open and operational in the months after that. We're showing some renditions. Talk about it. It's an extraordinary feat. What's going on right now. The building is under construction, and it will be a multidisciplinary performing arts center. Music, dance, chamber, opera, and theater. And it will give hope and bring life to that sacred ground of the World Trade Center. You know, it's interesting. That location? Yeah. Significant for a lot of reasons? Mm hmm. You know? 20th anniversary. Significant for a lot of reasons. Absolutely. What could it do for the Lower Manhattan community? What could it really do? Well the Lower Manhattan community has transformed so much in these 18 years. It sure has. It's quite remarkable. And I'm living down there now. Oh you are? As part of my new job. I really wanted to be a neighborhood artistic director. By the way, we should clarify you were also born and raised in beautiful Red Bank, New Jersey? Thank you very much. You bet. Alright. I'm a proud Jersey boy. And then went out to the West? 27 years on the West Coast. And now back home. And you're back home? Back home. Back east. Go ahead. Yes. The Perelman really is in the business of bringing people together and creating hope. We are gonna do performing arts that will bring international artists, domestic artists, people who have been artists their whole lives, and community members who may be first-time artists. So the building is going to be bursting with life, and I just can't wait for all the kind of projects that we're gonna do. You know, Ronald Perelman. The name. People may think, "Eh? I kind of know that name." Tell folks. Ronald is our naming donor, and he very generously gave us a gift... Was it like 2-300 bucks? A little more! [laughter] A little more! A little more than that. Go ahead. Go ahead. But he gave a very generous naming gift. And we're still fundraising. But the fundraising is going well. It costs a lot of money to build a..."