There could not be a more apt metaphor for the Scotiabank Dance Centre than dancers swinging from rock-climbing ropes high upon its seven-storey walls. The gravity-defying troupe Aeriosa performs at the building’s 10th-anniversary event this month, and, fittingly, it was the same artists who precariously hung from its walls to mark its opening a decade ago.

The centre itself was a giant jump off the edge—a leap of faith that some of the most isolated, invisible artists in the city, dancers, could unite in a $10.5-million glass-and-concrete flagship designed by Architectura with architectural icon Arthur Erickson, and located in the centre of downtown. It’s the only purpose-built dance centre of its kind on the continent. The brazen idea was that artists often relegated to makeshift rehearsal spaces and back-alley theatres deserved state-of-the-art studios and could make their presence known. And in the past 10 years, like Aeriosa’s high-flying performers, it’s clung to those ropes, worked against forces trying to pull it down, and helped dance climb to new heights in this city.

The Dance Centre is the head office and rehearsal centre for troupes from Ballet B.C. to Judith Marcuse Projects, and through its studios and programs it’s helped spawn a new generation of dance artists—names like Amber Funk Barton, Josh Martin, Sarah Coffin, and Shay Kuebler. It’s achieved all this in a climate of arts cuts and the recent economic recession.

Speaking to the Straight from Croatia, where she’s in the midst of a European tour forging connections for the local dance scene, executive director Mirna Zagar remembers the years planning the facility. “The main concern at the time was ‘Is this a project which is sustainable?’ ” she relates. “So many people didn’t believe that we had any chance of getting anywhere, especially in terms of funding, because the dance community was so invisible at the time. There’s so much better visibility because we have the Dance Centre.”

Bringing on emerging choreographer-dancer-climber Julia Taffe to animate the outside of the Dance Centre when it opened was the first sign the facility was willing to take artistic risks. “Julia had no idea how people would react to her hanging from the building—no one was doing it and we supported her from the beginning,” Zagar recalls. “From there she was able to build her company.”

To that point, Taffe was a rock-climbing guide who had only tried her new fusions in mountain settings; scaling an urban structure was a completely new challenge—but it’s one her troupe has mastered many times since.

“I think back on it now and I think, ‘Wow, that was bold and imaginative, just to get permission to do that…!’ ” Taffe tells the Straight, speaking over the phone before rehearsal. She is still marvelling that traffic had to be blocked from Davie Street for performances, with police on hand and buses rerouted—something you might expect for a big sporting event, but not for a contemporary-dance production.

“Here we are, 10 years later, having used the building many times for rehearsal, taught workshops, and built a profile in Vancouver, basically because the Dance Centre allowed us to access the building and train dancers, and helped me develop my vocabulary working in a very different way with space, gravity, and equipment.”

Now, for the 10th-anniversary open house from Thursday to Sunday (September 15 to 18), Taffe is ready to show how far the troupe—as well as the Dance Centre—has come. Her new Being is an ambitious multimedia show that integrates Michael Mann’s animation, Tim Matheson’s projections, Jason Dubois’s lighting, Kate Burrows’s costumes, and Jordan Nobles’s soundscape. The production begins inside the centre’s performance space, then moves to its exterior wall, using projected imagery and choreography to imagine what today’s art might look like if it survives to 10,000 years in the future.

“It’s pretty exciting for me to be here 10 years down the line celebrating our birthday as well as the Dance Centre’s,” Taffe tells the Straight. “It’s been great to watch the Dance Centre grow. At the beginning it was a real empty shell of a building. So to slowly watch the building fill up with people and stuff over 10 years has been amazing.

“One of the understated, amazing things about the Dance Centre is that on any given day there are classes practising all different kinds of dance. I do feel that dance is becoming more accessible and celebrated by more people.”

Far from being a bastion of narrowly defined contemporary dance, the centre has evolved into a thriving hub for everything from ballet to First Nations styles, salsa, tango, and flamenco. Its malleable black-box theatre has also been the scene of daring multimedia works. Think James Gnam’s plastic orchid factory dancers performing in complete darkness, with only small LED lights fastened to their bodies, or MACHiNENOiSY’s dancers pushing around giant walls of cardboard boxes, and the audience along with them.