LV is tending to Cultural Affairs

By Kristen Peterson

Monday, July 24, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.

City officials recognize that Las Vegas is growing up culturally, and to give more attention and emphasis to the burgeoning downtown arts scene, they are creating a separate department of Cultural Affairs.

They plucked Cultural Affairs from the office of Leisure Services, which oversees recreational, sports and performing arts programs. The reorganization means Cultural Affairs will no longer be filtered through parks and recreation and can focus mostly on the visual arts.

This is a natural progression of a growing city and enables the office to keep up with programs that five years ago were not on the radar or were "just a glimmer," says Nancy Deaner, Cultural Affairs manager.

"It's an organic thing - a response to the idea that more can be going on downtown," Deaner says. "The city has grown up and has become more sophisticated."

City officials are still working out the budget for the new office. Last year's budget for Cultural Affairs was roughly $5.9 million. Cultural Affairs will maintain the gallery exhibits in the city's community centers.

But a new performing arts manager will take over performance programs, which remain a part of Leisure Services. The city is still figuring out how much it will pay the performing arts manager. According to the city, Leisure Services has been around for 57 years and the Cultural Affairs Division has been around for about 30 years.

Cultural Affairs works with some of the following groups and organizations:

Anne L'Ecuyer of Americans for the Arts, a national nonprofit arts association that works with arts groups and local governments, says a lot of cities the size of Las Vegas makes this transition. "It's usually when the arts start to become a strategic part of the mayor's growth agenda," she said.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has been very vocal in supporting the arts and spearheaded the city's Percent for the Arts program, which allocates 1 percent of the construction costs for new civic buildings to support the public arts program.

Deaner says the office is also looking at ways to re-establish an arts council for the area. The nonprofit Allied Arts Council promoted Southern Nevada arts but fizzled out in recent years.

Evans, a native Las Vegan, credits Deaner for a lot of the changes: "Great cities in large part are based on culture. She really gets that the success of the core of Las Vegas is to make it kind of hip."

Last year, Nevada Humanities moved the Vegas Valley Book Festival out of Henderson and to the Cultural Corridor. This year the November festival will be held downtown and linked to First Friday.

"We just wanted to get to where the audience was," says Kris Darnall, program coordinator for Nevada Humanities Committee.

This kind of activity is exactly what the office of Cultural Affairs wants to see.

But the office has a tough job of what Deaner refers to as "connecting the dots." The Arts District is far from the Neon Museum's Boneyard, a long walk to the Poet's Bridge in the Lewis Avenue Corridor and the yet-to-be developed Union Plaza.

In an effort to unify downtown's fragmented cultural landmarks, the office will work with the planning department on its Urban Pathway's project.

"Downtown is precious," Deaner says. "We only have one. It's pedestrian-friendly and it's historic. We need to celebrate that."