Every other week on NHPR, we like to put a spotlight on people and places doing interesting things around the state, on Give Back NH.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
Since 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College in Hanover has been a cultural hub for both the college and the region.
I'm Dan Cahill and the Center, which is affectionately referred to as The Hop, is our focus on this week's Give Back New Hampshire.
Mary Lou Aleskie is the executive director of the Hopkins Center. Recounting the goal of The Hop at its inception, Mary Lou said it was a mix of artistic expression and community.
Mary Lou Aleskie: The original concept for the building was that if you put all of the arts under one roof and made it central to society, that there would be a confluence of energy that would create a new American genre of artistic expression. So all of it came together in the Hopkins Center and became a very unique kind of arts center. But add to that the social part of it, which had to do with it being having a central cafe and the mailboxes, so everybody in campus had to encounter the building and the art at some point in time. So it was very, very unique.
For Michael Bodel, director of external affairs, one of the things he loves most about The Hop is the diversity of offerings.
Michael Bodel: It has performing arts, it has visual arts, it has film, it has interdisciplinary stuff. And to me, that amalgam of all those things happening in one building and all the connections and crossing of paths is really inspiring to me.
In early October, I was invited to take a tour of the New Hop before the grand reopening on October 17.
Among the many stops on the tour, I saw the newly renovated Morris Recital Hall, the Top of the Hop, the Spaulding Auditorium, and the Daryl Roth Studio Theater. Each space is beautifully modernized for the present, while still invoking the past at the same time.
Michael says that the New Hop isn't solely focused on the Center, but the surrounding community as a whole.
Michael Bodel: We really are pulling together what we're thinking of as like an arts district that includes the Hood Museum, the academic departments, the Black Family Visual Arts Center, and trying to think about how a creative center can be right in campus.
For Johanna Evans, director of programing initiatives and a graduate of Dartmouth, one thing she's excited for is the expanded spaces for performances that weren't possible before.
Johanna Evans: The whole building has become a stage. There are nooks and crannies for performances that were not possible before. The Top of the Hop, for instance, now that the staircase has been removed, it is now a space where sound doesn't bleed in and out the way it used to. And you can have lots of spontaneous seeming arts experiences that the students can put on for each other in spaces like that, that didn't exist when I was a student.
Dartmouth's investment in the arts has not gone unnoticed by the students who will be frequenting the New Hop. Caden Taylor, a freshman with an interest in the arts, says that the New Hop has given him a sense of belonging within the community.
Caden Taylor: I really love to see the investment in the arts like this. Having this opportunity for music and having this space for music is something that really kind of helps me feel like I have a place here that's special to me.
According to Mary Lou, that was the intention of the New Hop from the beginning.
Mary Lou Aleskie: All the arts still remain in this building. But like this lovely room that we're in, there's so many new, nice gathering places that we're also amplifying the opportunity for us to create community, just people hanging out together. And, you know, in a rural community, especially where it's very easy to just tuck yourself away until, you know, past mud season, this is a good reason to come out and be with people.
