Volume 31 No. 9
September 2015
Neu Kirche celebrates a year in Northside with progress, events
Shakespeare takes on new life in local program By Madeline Smith Urban Impact Shakes is a group of semi-professional actors from the Northside, featuring youth, ages 15-18, who memorized 100-300 lines of Shakespeare in preparation for their performance of The Merchant of Venice, which
Photo courtesy of Neu Kirche
Neu Kirche, a contemporary art space in East Deutschtown has held events, exhibitions and even yoga classes in its first full year on the Northside. By Erika Fleegle Pittsburgh has a penchant for resurrecting churches. After closures left many area churches vacant, savvy business owners have turned their hallowed halls into concert venues, reception halls, and breweries. Now, it’s East Deutschtown’s turn to stake a claim to a former site of worship. Enter Neu Kirche Contemporary Art Center. Stepping through its wooden doors, into its spacious corridors, and among its intricate stained-glass windows, visitors will get the chance to see the collision of the potential of rising contemporary artists with the old-world charm of one of the
neighborhood’s oldest structures. Neu Kirche, which is German for “new church,” is under the guidance of Executive Director Lee Parker. After moving her family from her native New Zealand to attend a fellowship exchange program at Carnegie Mellon University in 2012, Parker noticed the lack of art in the Northside communities. She began looking for a potential community-centered arts venue in 2013 and, since August of last year, has been working together with her staff and local artists through the Northside Leadership Conference and the Community Alliance of Spring Garden East Deutschtown to transform the space into what it is today.
“It’s German-built,” Parker chuckled. “It’s made to last!” The church’s lower level, where visitors enter, is open and airy; the perfect space for installations. Upon ascending the stairs, visitors are met with the actual “church”. The pews are still intact, warm-toned stained glass windows draw the eye upward to the ceiling, and the shape of which is a replica of the bottom of the ships that German immigrants would use to migrate stateside. The former First Immanuel Evangelical Church has been in that particular spot for the past 125 years, surviving the construction of I-279 that essenSee Neu Kirche, Page 10
See Shakes, Page 11