Best new thing in the arts:
What was a six-classroom school in Fredericton in the 1880s is now a fully established arts centre offering dance, food, art and music. The Charlotte Street Arts Centre had its first full year in 2006, after opening in September, 2005.

"It's just exploding," says curator, photographer and Reader arts columnist Karen Ruet. "People can go there and identify with it as a cultural centre. It's not just a venue or a gallery."

The arts centre houses the New Brunswick Film Co-op and the Underground Café, a space offering light vegetarian food and a reading room packed with non-mainstream fare ranging from Marxist dogma to gay lit. Celtic and Latin dance lessons and language classes are taught at the centre. Space in the building also allows New Brunswick artists to display their work.

Ruet said the centre, altough it's just over one year old, seems like it's always been there.

– The New Brunswick Reader, Dec. 30. 2006

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