CLUB SAW GETS A MAKEOVER
Party central for creative class sticks to punk roots
It was close to midnight when I arrived at Club SAW one recent Saturday night, and I hardly recognized the place.
From the Nicholas Street entrance, a short walk from the LRT’s Rideau Station, I could hear a DJ spinning some of the most effervescent tunes in pop music as coloured lights bounced around the room. I recognized a few of the beaming faces on the packed dance floor, and a few more in the crowd gathered around the bar. In other words, the place was hopping.
Like many live-music fans in Ottawa, I recalled the basement space at Arts Court as a dark, awkward area at the bottom of a dark, narrow staircase that, for decades, played host to punk and indie bands and a few dozen of their all-ages fans.
What a difference a well-thoughtout renovation makes. As part of the multimillion-dollar renovation to the Arts Court building (which also resulted in the spanking new Ottawa Art Gallery), the artist-run SAW Gallery got a makeover that gives it four times more exhibition space, a welcoming courtyard entrance, far better accessibility and dramatic improvements to the basement nightclub.
There, Club SAW has been transformed into a state-of-the-art multidisciplinary venue and pop-up gallery dedicated to performances, parties and other cultural happenings. Its capacity has almost tripled, with room for more than 280 people standing, or 100 seated in rows of chairs.
But neither weddings nor corporate events will take place within its walls, vowed curator Jason St-Laurent during a daytime tour of the new facility.
“We were really lucky in the sense that we got some federal funding through the cultural spaces program so it’s important for us to make sure this venue would always be for cultural purposes,” he said. “Venues can get addicted to wedding-reception revenue and then that fills your weekends for months and months. We didn’t want that to happen here.”
Instead, in the four months it’s been open, Club SAW has become party central for Ottawa’s creative class. Music promoters, including Spectrasonic and Debaser, are booking shows. Festivals are hosting parties. Films are being screened. Books, albums, plays and art projects are being launched, sharing the calendar with educational and networking activities such as workshops and conferences.
On the first night I was there, the event was a joint after-party celebrating the end of two festivals: the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the NAC’s Mòshkamo festival of Indigenous arts. Partygoers flowed from Club SAW to the gallery space upstairs, and through the hallways into the exhibition spaces, party rooms and terraces of the Ottawa Art Gallery.
Between the two facilities, there were multiple DJs and several art exhibits to check out, including the often graphic images of the SAW Gallery’s first showing in the revamped gallery, Sex Life: Homoeroticism in Drawing.
As the title suggests, Sex Life is a collection of drawings by nine Canadian and international artists that leaves little to the imagination when it comes to gay sex. The level of explicitness — not to mention the number of erect penises — is bold for a public space in Ottawa.
But that’s a key part of the master plan for the SAW Gallery.
“I wouldn’t say there was a fear in the community that we would institutionalize but it can happen when someone renovates and expands,” St-Laurent said. “We were pretty adamant about not losing our punk spirit so we decided to open our centre with this exhibition to set the tone for the new centre. We haven’t changed very much and we still take programming risks.”
Still, for live music fans, the best part is the great-sounding performance space. According to the curator, that concept dates back to SAW’s 1973 origin as the Sussex Annex Works, when it was located in the same Sussex Drive building as the legendary Café Le Hibou. In the early years, it moved from Sussex to the ByWard Market to Rideau Street, settling in the basement of Arts Court in the late ’80s. “There’s always been this relationship to the music scene,” St-Laurent said. “It’s fairly unusual to have a nightclub with an artist-run centre but it was always part of the SAW multidisciplinary spirit of music and art coming together in one venue.”
While the underground spirit remains, the dank basement vibe is gone, thanks to a wall of glass doors at the entrance that can be opened onto the new courtyard. Other improvements to the club include the latest digital sound and video-projection equipment, a backstage green room, complete with mirrors and a shower, a raised stage, and the bar itself, proceeds of which will help fund projects that may not be eligible for public funding. Accessibility is also greatly improved, including elevators, a wheelchair ramp and an adult-changing table in one of the all-gender washrooms.
The next phase will see the opening of the SAW Gallery’s Nordic Lab, a research and production space for artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, from circumpolar nations. It will house the new Annie Pootoogook Studio and be equipped with digital workstations, screen-printing equipment and a large-format photography printer.