Over the past 10 years, the Fleck Dance Theatre has only been used for 40 per cent of its 292 bookable days annually, including a 2008 performance of David St-Pierre’s “La Pornographie des ames!”Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre cultural complex says it plans to terminate its lease for the Fleck Dance Theatre next March as it continues to reckon with a years-long financial crunch.
First named the Premier Dance Theatre, which opened in 1983 with a gala hosted by Karen Kain, the 440-capacity Fleck was refurbished and renamed in 2008. Over the past 10 years, Harbourfront said Thursday, the theatre was only used for 40 per cent of its 292 bookable days annually, both for in-house and rental programming.
While the main Harbourfront campus sits on land with a 99-year lease from the City of Toronto, the Fleck theatre is in an adjacent building, leased with Northam Realty Advisors Ltd. Harbourfront chief executive Cathy Loblaw said in an interview that while its annual operating costs were greater than $400,000, the most revenue it’d brought in over the past 10 years was $97,000, in its 2019-20 fiscal year.
Shutting down the Fleck was a difficult decision, Loblaw said, but a necessary one as Harbourfront tries to steer into fiscal safety in an era where both its finances, and the finances of the much of the broader arts and cultural sector, are in rough shape.
“We are looking at all of our expenses across all programming, all operations, the entire organization, and trying to make as many responsible choices to reduce overhead and bring our costs in line with the funding support that we have,” Loblaw said. Key to that is shedding the Fleck theatre’s lease, she added.
Harbourfront Centre is also home to the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. The federally funded non-profit has undergone significant struggles since COVID-19 lockdowns ended. Long-time chief executive Marah Braye left quietly in December, 2023. It also closed a much-cherished outdoor skating rink, though it is now expected to reopen after community pushback. And a federal report last February indicated that Harbourfront faced an expected $106-million in deferred maintenance over the next two decades.
The cultural complex has cut staff and reduced spending in recent years to try and stem ongoing losses, and received $10-million for maintenance, over two years, in this year’s federal budget – though its board president, Tenio Evangelista, said at the time that the funding wouldn’t be enough to fix its overall capital deficit.
The Fleck’s regular tenants included companies and events such as ProArteDanza, DanceWorks and Fall For Dance North. Loblaw said Harbourfront hopes to continue hosting dance on its campus, including in its 350-seat Harbourfront Centre Theatre. She added that the complex is working to find a home for two events that had been scheduled for the Fleck theatre after its lease ends on March 31.
