Dennyse Sewell
The Pioneer Center is a non-profit performing arts center located in the heart of downtown Reno. We are in an absolutely gorgeous, one-of-a-kind historic building on the banks of the Truckee River.
Our building was constructed in the 1960s, so we have been open and operating as a non-profit performing arts center for over 56 years now. I’m Dennyse Sewell, the CEO of the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.
One of the amazing things about being a community performing art center is that our historic stage is the first performance opportunity for so many young children in the area. Aspiring young musicians and dancers will perform their first recitals here on our stage.
There is incredible magic when all those children come into this professional theater for the first time. The feedback we get from those children and their parents is that it’s life-changing for them to have those first experiences on our stage.
We know that many of those people choose to stay in this community and build their lives here in Reno as they grow. They remember those first experiences and what they meant to them. We are in the bedrock of downtown Reno, and we’re not going anywhere.
We have seen and felt tremendous improvement since the business district created the Downtown Reno Partnership. The ambassadors’ work to provide casual folks on the street with directions and assistance is especially impressive.
They are the friendliest, most helpful people in the community who advocate for downtown and all of the businesses. They truly are our partners. The name is well-earned: Downtown Reno Partnership.
They are partners in helping to make downtown the place that we all see in our hearts that we know it is. They help push that message to everyone they meet on the street.
They’ve just been an incredible asset to downtown, and we’ve been grateful to work with them. My name is Adam Cates, and I am the Director of Community Engagement for the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts.
ADAM CATES
The Pioneer Center is the hub of the performing arts in our region, right here in downtown Reno. It is home to some incredible organizations, from the world-class Reno Philharmonic Orchestra to Art Town, which brings in incredible performances from across the world, and AVA Ballet Theater, which presents the annual Nutcracker, a tradition for so many families in northern Nevada.
The Pioneer Center is the place to come for the best world-class performances. One thing that I love is the way that the bar and restaurant scene has just exploded over the past decade or so, and many of those incredible restaurants and bars and establishments are right here in downtown Reno.
They’re right across the street, right down the block from us, and it’s been really wonderful to have a central gathering place like the Pioneer Center that can also engage with many of the restaurants and bars in our region.
DENNYSE SEWELL
As the city’s footprint continues to expand and more incredible folks learn about, want to be part of, and want to live here, the heart of Reno remains right here along the river in the core of downtown.
This is the unique identity of the city, and arts and culture have the unbelievable ability to weave into the fabric of that identity. They bring so many different folks together for so many different kinds of experiences, all authentic and genuine, all designed to bring you together, uplift each other, and explore what it means to be human together through the arts.
There is no limit to what that can do to change people’s lives and to enrich a city well into the future. So whatever the future has in store for Reno, arts and culture are critical to our identity.