By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

Sandra Bernhard, new director of College-Conservatory of Music's opera department, returned from the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh on fire with ideas, on topics ranging from new views on artist training to metro arts models.

Cincinnati Ballet artistic director Victoria Morgan went to Pittsburgh, too, and loved the networking. "I'm the only ballet artistic director in this community," she noted. "It can feel pretty isolated. It was stimulating and reinforcing" to be at the convention she said, "and get new ideas."

Following three days of individual conferences by Opera America, Dance/USA, Chorus America and the American Symphony Orchestra League, on June 12 the arts pros came together for joint sessions in the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

The center's long wall of windows overlooks two sports stadiums hugging a riverbank. The sites for all were chosen, says longtime Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, because Pittsburgh's downtown was turned around by arts and culture.

"The convention center couldn't be here without the success of the cultural district," said Murphy. "The stadia wouldn't be where they are. The performing arts high school wouldn't be where it is."

The homes of the Steelers football team and baseball's Pirates are across the river and the high school and convention center are within walking distance of a 14-block, carefully plotted arts-driven district that has turned around a desolate and desperate section of downtown.

The choice of convention city began with a short list of about a dozen cities nationwide that have all the institutions represented long-term by national arts service organizations. Culture-rich Cincinnati is among that handful of cities. (The next convention, planned in four years, hopes to double the number of organizations and participants.)

Arts and culture are a pervasive force in downtown Pittsburgh. The convention center has video walls, which permanently show the work of regional artists - in high-definition. The artfully designed subway is clean, well-patrolled and free downtown and a riverfront park plan stands ready.

There are theaters and galleries large and small, restaurants have sprung up between them, and there was gratifying street life at night.

With its buildings, including a new home for regional Pittsburgh Public Theatre in place, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust is embarking on programming to capture local and national attention. The Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts will bring troupes from Germany, Japan, Spain, Great Britain, Russia and Poland Oct. 8-24.

Pittsburgh has lately taken a hard blow with large department stores exiting, but people are starting to move back downtown, drawn by heady entertainment options, including a repertory cinema in the cultural district.

With its accomplishments, Pittsburgh seemed like a natural for the first National Performing Arts Convention, said national chairman Marc Scorca of Opera America. What better place to start a national conversation on shared issues than in a city that has built talk into action and action into a success story?

Local chairman Mark Weinstein of Pittsburgh Opera said that any city can accomplish what Pittsburgh has, with the vision and the will.

"Absolutely," agrees Cincinnati Councilman Jim Tarbell, who heads Council's arts and culture committee. "We have a stronger infrastructure. We're probably doing more - I'm not saying we're doing as much as we should - but we need to get the word out."

Stephen Leeper, who helped work magic in Pittsburgh before coming to Cincinnati to head the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. echoes Tarbell that Cincinnati "has the basis."

When the community will recognize it, he suggests, is when people see the outcomes of the two key projects now underway, the renovation of Fountain Square and the area around Music Hall/Washington Park.

It was impossible to attend all the simultaneous sessions on June 12, which touched on technology, arts education, government and foundation support and the anatomy of buzz.

In one session, Janice Price, president of the new, multi-million dollar Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia (and anchor to that city's Avenue of the Arts) got to the heart of the matter in a panel on arts as a catalyst for urban development.

"When are we going to get back to arts for arts' sake?" was her bold question.

If he'd stayed for the Saturday sessions, Pittsburgh's mayor would probably have cheered Price on.

Earlier, he'd told the assembled arts professionals, that investing in arts "is a no-brainer.

"You can go to any city in American and find an arts organization creating vitality in every neighborhood. And leaders still don't get it. Arts and culture is the genesis of the revitalization of communities."

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com