November 17, 2017-- I am happy to announce that, as of this week, ISD is one step closer to opening the doors to a brand new Performing Arts Center (PAC) that will serve as a significant arts and sports venue for ISD and its surrounding community.
This past Tuesday, we saw bids for construction of our new PAC, which is set to break ground in January 2018 and open its doors to ISD students and the wider community around August 2019
The construction of a new PAC was approved in Spring 2015, as part of our Strategic Plan to grow ISD and help our school realize its loftiest goals. We wanted a center that would serve as a concert hall, vent space, art gallery, and sports venue—one that would inspire our students to create complex art projects and display their work in a space that matched their talent.
The Board of Trustees approved the project in 2016, and for the past year, we have been working with a Senegalese project management and architecture team to bring our vision for a state-of-the-art Performing Arts Center to life.
“The school we have today is the legacy of the planning and foresight of the administrators, teachers and Board Trustees of the past. The development of the PAC and Gym is the next phase of this continuum,” commented Louisa Gibbs, the Board of Trustees Chair.
The new PAC will have a 350-seat capacity for events and sports games. It will have a black-box theater and a permanent art gallery, displaying student work and local Senegalese pieces. It will have two full-sized courts and training facilities. In many ways, the new Performing Arts Center will be a significant addition not only to ISD, but to the larger Dakar community.
At ISD, we are constantly striving to improve student learning and to improve ourselves as a school. The construction of the PAC will mark our continued growth, constant innovation, and success as a school community.