Basin Arts
A place for Acadiana to move, create, and collaborate
Paul Kieu
Clare Cook struggles with downtime. Her serene demeanor belies the battle she wages daily against idle hands. “If I let energy lay dormant too long, potentially—the car will stop,” she said.
Cook, at 33, is an accomplished dancer and choreographer. She said her tendency toward creative productivity is in her genes. She comes from a family of doers and has deep Acadiana roots.
After a decade in New York City, she returned to her hometown, Lafayette, in May 2016. Shortly after coming back, she was ready to use her innate energy to build her own space—someplace different from the typical dance studio. Her vision, combined with her need to create, has led to Basin Arts, which opened in August 2016. Basin Arts, according to Cook, is a container for creativity—a center that supports and implements cross-disciplinary collaboration for Acadiana artists.
Basin Arts creates opportunities for artistic expression across generations through dance classes, art classes, visual arts residencies, gallery programming and special events. The rigorous schedule of classes includes yoga, ballet, tap and more for beginners to professionals. Students have a range of options—from a single class for $15 to a Basin Arts membership for twelve months with unlimited classes for $50 a month.
The center is also home to the Basin Dance Collective, a contemporary dance company led by Cook. Cook describes the Basin Dance Collective as an ensemble of high-caliber dancers, choreographers, and collaborators who develop original dances that reflect the talent and vibrancy of South Louisiana as well as the professional standards of the greater dance industry. Through the Basin Dance Collective, Cook and other dancers share the power of movement and dance with people of all ages, abilities and interests in workshops and outreach classes.
[Also read: It Takes Two to Two-Step]
But Basin Arts is not simply a dance studio. It’s also an art gallery and the working studio space for five visual artists. At its heart, the center is rooted in the buoying and buttressing of Acadiana artists’ collaboration. Though situated in downtown Lafayette, Basin Arts’ genesis goes back to 2013 when Cook was living in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. She had just become engaged to Dr. Robert Autin (who was doing his residency in New York City but is also originally from Lafayette). “It was at that period of life when you start to verbalize your future with someone else—and not just your single-track future,” said Cook. She started to consider, in concrete terms, what life could be like if the couple returned to Louisiana. “I hadn’t allowed myself to think about life outside New York City. When you’re there and successfully working from project to project to project, you have to be in it every second. If you get off for a minute, it just keeps going. I couldn’t even mention to my colleagues that I was considering something else.”
And yet, she found herself dreaming about all the possibilities that coming home held. “Up until that point, I was pretty rigid. I held on to New York City very tightly. I felt like the city totally validated my identity as an artist,” she said. “It’s funny how when you mush your life with someone else’s, a lot of things re-arrange and open up in a way you never expected. It was an exciting time.”
Paul Kieu
Over the next few years, she spent her evenings envisioning what she could build back home in Lafayette. On her computer, she kept a document of notes and ideas for combining the elements she loved in her frenetic New York life with a different pace and place. “Collaboration was always at the heart of what I loved in New York City—so I knew that had to be at the heart of things,” said Cook.
“In Lafayette, there are fewer choreographic artists, so there are more opportunities here—some approach me and others I see and want to take advantage of,” said Cook. “The distance from idea to fruition is quicker here."
Now that Basin Arts is eighteen months old, the organization has gained approval as a non-profit in Louisiana and is in the process of getting federal tax-exempt status. The organization has also gained its footing in Acadiana’s artistic community, and Cook has enjoyed that process.
Beyond daily collaborations, critiques, and performances at Basin Arts, Cook and the Basin Arts group also teamed up with Runaway Dish, a foodie group in Lafayette that works with regional chefs to push the bounds of local dining experiences, to create STIR, a dance-and-food event that was performed at Acadiana Center for the Arts in August 2017. STIR mixed the senses together and took inspiration from some of life’s basic necessities, food and movement. Five choreographers presented five new dance works in collaboration with five chefs. “In Lafayette, there are fewer choreographic artists, so there are more opportunities here—some approach me and others I see and want to take advantage of,” said Cook. “The distance from idea to fruition is quicker here. On that note, it’s a lot more challenging for me to create space for development—as far as me being the artist rather than just focusing on generating art.”
[You might also like: Silk Compositions]
Cook hopes to help local artists and collaborations make a bigger impression outside of Louisiana. “Walking away from a strong foothold in New York City has the potential to remove all sorts of legitimacy. The internet is changing that, which is great,” she said. “Media, technology, politics … there is a conversation that is broadening to include the rest of the country. I believe there’s a heightened interest in localism and grassroots mentality.”
Basin Arts visual artists create a variety of styles of art. Jacob Broussard, who was one of the first artists to studio at Basin Arts, left in August 2017 to work on his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking at the Yale School of Art. Broussard said he’s grateful for the time he had at Basin. “The impression that the space has had on me is one of generosity—a periodic check-in of eager makers and compelling collaborators all within close proximity to one another,” he said.
Dayna Haynie, 29, is one of the visual artists who currently holds studio space in Basin Arts. She also did the recent Lafayette-to-NYC-and-back boomerang routine and found herself looking for studio space when she returned home.
Haynie has a surprising collection of talents: she is a lobbyist at the Louisiana State Capitol, a nationally certified art therapist, a personal trainer (with an emphasis on working with women), and an artist. “Being here at Basin Arts has been so amazing. In New York my biggest surface to make art was my bed—that was my art space. It was wild. Here I have so much space, and I love to combine things and collage,” said Haynie. “Since I’m back home, I’m using a lot of material from childhood: foam letters, stickers, pom-poms.”
While many of the artists at Basin Arts, are more traditional painters, Haynie’s studio space is on sensory overload, filled with a cacophony of texture and color—feathery, flowery, and psychedelic. She creates a variety of collages and right now is focusing her attention on creating toenail art. With toenails, Haynie explained, she’s using a “canvas” that may surprise some to explore female accessorizing, girl talk, and bonding. “I’m working on how to communicate about topics in a way that is playful but may be coming from a place that isn’t playful—trying to figure out how to navigate it,” she said.
Haynie said the variety of art and activity in the Basin Arts building inspires her. “For example, I was listening to a tap dancing class last week with all the different cultures, flamenco dancing, show tunes, Irish dancing—all back to back,” said Haynie. “Some people have a concept, and then they create it. I like to have a basic concept and materials and have the concept and material bounce back and forth.”
Later this spring, Basin Arts is partnering with Lafayette Economic Development Authority and the Opportunity Machine to launch an art rental program. Cook is working with Basin Arts curator Jaik Faulk to collect a roster of artists with inventory and digital portfolios. Clients will pay a monthly fee, and the artwork will be installed and rotated on six-month schedules. “We’ve modeled the idea from what works in larger cities,” said Cook. “The program will allow local businesses to have a very tangible and visible way to support the arts. From the Basin Arts perspective, it’s all about connecting the community.”
This article originally appeared in our April 2018 issue. Subscribe to our print magazine today.
