Anaheim City Council have approved the Cooperative Agreement!

Dear Friends,

How do we begin to thank you?

We write with gratitude for the numerous heartfelt letters of support. They did indeed make a difference, helping to bring a unanimous vote by City Council to approve the cooperative agreement between the Anaheim Ballet and the City of Anaheim. We are humbled by your comments and good wishes.

The Agreement

The approved agreement states that over the next year the City of Anaheim and Anaheim Ballet will work together to find a permanent solution for Anaheim Ballet’s residency.

What’s next

Even as we continue with regular events throughout the year, including the AB School recital and summer intensive, lecture/demonstrations, and Anaheim Ballet company Nutcracker and youth bus-in performances, we need to look to the future. We need to find a permanent home for Anaheim Ballet. We’d like to remain in the Anaheim Cultural Arts Center if possible.

What can you do?

Please stay informed here on our website, or instagram and facebook pages, for how you can help during this process. Thank you!

Thank you - keep sending your comments!

Dear Anaheim Ballet family and friends,

Your letters are having a positive effect! Please keep them coming!

Thanks to you and the amazing response of the letter writing campaign in support of the proposed agreement, at this moment in-person public comments this Tuesday do not appear as necessary.

In the next stage of this journey, public comments may become extremely important as the City proposes specific plans for the future of Anaheim Ballet. We greatly appreciate the outpouring of your heartfelt support and will keep everyone informed when we reach the next stage and possible need for “in-person” community support.

With gratitude to all in the Anaheim Ballet extended family,

Larry, Sarma, AB Board of Directors, and Staff

Cooperative Agreement on the City Council Meeting Agenda

Dear Friend of Anaheim Ballet,

We need your help!

Following the dissolution of California Redevelopment Agencies, the State of California has mandated the city-owned Anaheim Cultural Arts Center, home of Anaheim Ballet, be repurposed for affordable housing.

The City has not yet identified a new home for the Anaheim Ballet, nor guaranteed a continuation of its long-standing partnership.

At the upcoming April 27 meeting, City Council will vote on whether or not to approve an agreement stating the city and Anaheim Ballet have one year to negotiate a home and continued partnership.

Please contact Anaheim City Council and urge them to approve the agreement.

• Send your message of support to publiccomment@anaheim.net (and if possible, copy to info@anaheimballet.org)

• We would encourage you to send a letter as soon as possible, but to ensure distribution to the City Council prior to consideration of the agenda, please submit your letter prior to 1:30pm PST on Tuesday April 27

• Please ask friends and family to participate in this save Anaheim Ballet campaign

We’re hoping to stay in the Anaheim Cultural Arts Center building! There is a possibility of saving the building and our residency if a majority of City Council members write a letter requesting that the state rescind the mandate for affordable housing at this site. At the very least, the City needs to provide a relocation site and continue the original site for services partnership.

We’re requesting your help in determining the future of the Anaheim Ballet, Anaheim’s resident ballet company since 1997 that includes a professional performing company, a school and a youth outreach program STEP-UP!

Each and every one of you has been knit into the fabric that is now Anaheim Ballet. Whether as performers, supporters of the arts, students, volunteer community members wishing the best for your neighborhood, or supporters of your own child hoping to expand their world and future, YOU are an integral part of making AB a thriving, vibrating presence in the world today! We thank you!

We need you to help continue the positive impact AB offers to individuals and communities! YOU can help Anaheim Ballet stay in the forefront of uplifting artistic expansion, inclusivity and balanced community building...

VOICE Your Support in Writing

SAMPLE [suggestion for expressing your support of the organization]:

Dear Mayor Sidhu and Council Members,

The arts are an important part of any community, and for more than 20 years, Anaheim Ballet has been a valued arts force and presence in Anaheim. Anaheim Ballet provides free community-based after-school programming, workforce and recreational training, bus-in presentations, lecture/demonstrations and concert performances and has been recognized both locally and internationally as a point of pride to the City.

The Anaheim Cultural Arts Center (the current home of the Anaheim Ballet) is slated to be demolished without plans for a new Cultural Arts Center or home for the Anaheim Ballet. If the City demolishes this architecturally unique building, you will be removing the only Cultural Arts Center in the City and displacing the City’s treasured arts organization. It is best for the community, and especially for our underserved youth, that Anaheim Ballet remains in its current accessible location!

Please vote in support of the Cooperative Agreement with Anaheim Ballet. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

(YOUR NAME HERE)

*Spanish translation available

EMAIL and/or MAIL to:

• Email your message of support to publiccomment@anaheim.net (and if possible, copy to info@anaheimballet.org)

• Mail your letter to: Mayor Harry Sidhu and City Council at 200 S. Anaheim Blvd., 7th Floor Anaheim, CA 92805

• To locate your Anaheim City Council member, go to: http://anaheim.net/173/City-Council

Here are other points you might consider:

• Anaheim Ballet provides a world-class training facility and professional performance company.

• Our city and our county benefit immeasurably by having an arts institution with an acclaimed reputation for excellence.

• Anaheim Ballet best serves the community in its residency in the Anaheim Cultural Arts Center, near City Hall, the Muzeo and the Packing District as part of Anaheim’s civic and cultural center.

• Anaheim Ballet provides a safe haven for the youth in our community, and program participants demonstrate improved performance in school and acquire workforce skill sets.

• Many of the underserved youth who benefit from the daily STEP-UP! outreach program live near the facility.

Thanking you in advance for helping Anaheim Ballet continue its service to our community.

A ballet company is a unique place where the most humble of the community and the most spotlighted meet on common ground of the dance floor celebrating a human vision, reaching beyond the mundane and reminding us of the possibilities of the human spirit!

Dancers soar!

Let’s soar with them!

Lawrence Rosenberg and Sarma Lapenieks Rosenberg, Directors

Anaheim Ballet Board of Directors: Vivian Gottheiner, Natalie Imkamp, Doug McKay, Dale Merrill, Rosalinda Monroy, Lawrence Rosenberg, Sarma Lapenieks Rosenberg, Rayell Segerstrom, Raina Tsuda, Jacque Lollie Walker, Steve Wells

*As a permanent solution: The Anaheim Cultural Arts Center building is available for purchase on behalf of Anaheim Ballet.