Friends of Dreamland Ballroom
Stately Taborian Hall and its iconic Dreamland Ballroom "matters" greatly.
Located on the corner of Ninth and State Streets, Taborian Hall is the only remaining historic building on West Ninth, a testimony to the street's former vibrancy and glory days as Little Rock's "Little Harlem", the now vanished center of the city's black community before desegregation. Since its beginnings in 1918, Dreamland Ballroom had been the epicenter for the community's artistic life. Live music, dances, theatre, comedy, film, club meetings and socials were all integral parts of the tradition and story of Dreamland Ballroom and her community between the end of World War I and 1970. Over the decades, Dreamland hosted such performers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, B.B. King, Etta James, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Redd Foxx, and Nat "King" Cole. This Place Matters because the story is an essential part of the history of black Arkansans, has national repercussions and deserves to be told to a national audience. Without the building a significant amount of Little Rock history would not only be lost, but forgotten.
Taborian Hall and its Dreamland Ballroom serve as both a landmark and touchstone. Because it is the last remaining historic structure on the six block Ninth Street corridor, it has become the physical landmark for remembering where many of the other commerce and community buildings used to be. This Place Matters because it is the primary means to new partnerships, development, commerce and tourism on Ninth Street. This Place Matters because it is the heart of rebuilding not only Ninth Street, but an entire quadrant of a languishing downtown. The Place Matters because it is bringing people together, leading to frank discussions about culture, segregation laws and lack of civil rights in Little Rock by the people who experienced it firsthand. Because the building remains in much the same way it existed, with both exterior and interior facades intact from her glory days, she is a true testament to preservation and the rich history of segregated Little Rock.The building serves as a tribute to not only the African American community, but to all cultures, of Little Rock's difficult segregated past and shows how even in the most diverse circumstances, the African American community created a beautiful place of commerce and culture for themselves, and now, for all Arkansans. This Place Matters because it is one of the very last historic theatres in Little Rock and, we believe, will once again host renowned musicians and artists. Most of the historic ballrooms and auditoriums in Little Rock have been adaptively rehabbed as apartments and offices, and not retained as performance spaces due to the inability of the spaces to fund their own restorations. The owners of Dreamland Ballroom and Friends of Dreamland nonprofit envision a space that the community will use and enjoy by attending performances, events, and performing themselves on the Dreamland stage, continuing nearly a century of the community and artistic heritage of Dreamland Ballroom.
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