Denver’s Five Points neighborhood stands as a cultural landmark — a place where Black ancestors sowed dreams along redlined streets as jazz horns pierced segregation’s veil and civil rights chants channeled a cultural heartbeat.
As Five Points grapples with gentrification and fading jazz-era legacies, the expansion of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance (CPRD) Center For The Healing Arts transforms a KKK-scarred church into a $25 million hub for healing arts, ensuring Black dance endures for generations amid urban change.
Born in resistance, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, located at the intersection of Park Avenue West, East 20th Avenue, and Washington Street, has blossomed into a vibrant force, memorializing Five Points’ layered generational heritage through every dancer’s step and sway. Anchored by the storied Shorter Community African Methodist Episcopal Church, the 25,000-square-foot expansion will fuse the 100-year-old landmark with four-stories of state-of-the-art rehearsal and dance studios, including a 28-foot-high Studio A, an underground Flex Space theater, community gathering spaces, and a solar-paneled atrium.
The glass-paneled addition contrasts sharply with Shorter AME’s historic blond brick, fusing the local landmark with contemporary architecture to more than double the facility…